Secession Effort Dealt a Setback : Schools: A county committee says it must recommend against a move by Sierra Madre parents to leave the Pasadena district.

Saying its hands are tied by state guidelines regarding desegregation, a Los Angeles County schools committee Wednesday recommended against a controversial proposal for Sierra Madre to secede from the Pasadena Unified School District.

Several members of the Los Angeles County Committee on School District Reorganization expressed frustration at the current state guidelines, saying they are outdated and need revision.

“Those parents are concerned about their children’s safety and education,” said Mary E. Lewis, a committee member. “I’m unhappy about having to deny the petition. I don’t think their motivation was racial. There should be somewhere they can go to get some action.”

The issue now goes before the state Board of Education, which is expected to issue a final decision within four months.

State law requires that the committee deny petitions that would increase segregation of students by race or ethnicity. But although the committee agreed that parents were motivated by a desire for quality education, and not by racial concerns, it concluded that allowing Sierra Madre to secede would indeed increase segregation.

“If the transfer were effected, it would take 11% of the white students out of the (Pasadena) district. That has to be considered a substantial number,” said committee member O. Neal Hertzmann.

The vote was 8 to 1. In casting the sole dissenting vote, Louis J. Heine blasted the state guidelines as obsolete, saying, “We are being asked to evaluate criteria which do not cover the real issues.”

Secession leaders from Sierra Madre, a mainly white, middle-class city of 11,250, have maintained that race plays no role in their wish to join the 7,783-student Arcadia Unified School District. Parents cite student safety and quality of education as their main concerns. There are 635 Sierra Madre students now attending Pasadena public schools; 1,265 are in private schools.

The Sierra Madre parents said they have more in common with affluent Arcadia, their neighbor to the south, where students rank consistently high on standardized math and reading achievement tests. The 22,000-student Pasadena district, by contrast, is 79% minority, and its students score in the bottom third on the tests.

Secession leaders said they were not surprised by Wednesday’s ruling but remain confident that the state will overturn the decision.

“We don’t think . . . the decision today is made in concrete,” said Bart Doyle, a leader of Sierra Madre Parents for a Better Education. “We think the criteria are outdated, especially the racial criteria, which date from the middle ‘70s. If racial trends continue, Doyle said, non-white students will make up a majority of Arcadia’s enrollment by 1991, when Sierra Madre would join the district.

But Pasadena officials did not share Doyle’s view. “We believe the case is very clear,” Deputy Schools Supt. Robert A. Sampieri said. “We’re very pleased.”

Pasadena administrators say losing Sierra Madre students would heighten segregation in the district. In addition, they said, education programs would suffer because the district would lose $1.8 million in state money allocated according to student population.

But Pasadena administrators also came under some fire from the county committee.

“Pasadena should be a little more sensitive and open-eared to the complaints of parents. . . . We have heard a lot of discontent,” said committee chairwoman Frances D. Thompson.