Secession

Few chapters in recent Los Angeles public school history have been uglier than the one that is expected to culminate today with a Board of Education vote on whether to allow Birmingham High School to effectively secede and become a charter school. For months, the San Fernando Valley campus has been torn between pro- and anti-charter forces who have accused each other of, among other things, bullying, vandalism, burglary, racism and fraud.

Representatives of laundry and garment workers said they would vote today on whether to withdraw from their union, Unite Here, with an eye toward establishing formal ties with the Service Employees International Union. But Unite Here's majority leadership said the union's constitution prohibits affiliates from deciding on their own to secede.