ELECTIONS: ANTELOPE VALLEY SCHOOLS : New District to Be Decided Tuesday

Voters in the Lake Los Angeles area of the Antelope Valley will decide Tuesday whether to build and operate a high school in their school district, a move that would allow more local control of education but also could mean higher taxes.

Approval of Measure W would let the Wilsona School District, an elementary district at the eastern end of Antelope Valley, break from the Antelope Valley Union High School District.

The heart of the Wilsona district is Lake Los Angeles, a small unincorporated community about 15 miles east of Lancaster and Palmdale. The district has 3,159 voters, and the measure requires a majority to pass.

Voters also will choose among eight candidates to fill seats on a proposed new five-member school board. But board members would take office only if Measure W passes and the district is reorganized as the Wilsona Unified School District, starting in mid-1991.

District Supt. Chet Caldeira, who said he favors unification, said the biggest challenge if the measure passes would be finding money to build the school. He estimated that it could cost $12 million to build a school designed to serve 1,000 students.

Citing the scarcity of state money to build new schools, Caldeira said it would be highly likely that the new district would have to sponsor a school bond measure calling for a local tax increase. Such a measure would require two-thirds approval by voters at a subsequent election. The amount of any tax increase would depend on the amount of the bonds.

Supporters of Measure W claim that Lake Los Angeles is large enough to have its own high school, that the area’s students would be better-served and that a high school would bring now-lacking recreational facilities to the area.

But the ballot measure has divided the community, and most community leaders and school officials have predicted that the election will be close.

The unification campaign began several years ago among parents angry that their children had to be bused to the closest Antelope Valley district high school, about 15 miles away in Lancaster.

In the fall of 1989, however, the Antelope Valley High School District opened a temporary campus in the Littlerock area about 10 miles from Lake Los Angeles, where most Lake Los Angeles area high school students go. A $25-million permanent high school is set to open in Littlerock in the fall of 1991, and opponents of Measure W claim that building another high school would be a waste of money.

Of the eight school board candidates, four are incumbents on the current elementary district board and four are newcomers. Seven of the eight have said they favor unification. Only Maurice Kunkel, the current school board president, has voiced reservations about the measure.