Cerritos

In a move to stabilize enrollments at junior high schools in the ABC Unified School District and avoid closing any campuses, the board of trustees voted unanimously Monday to change attendance boundaries beginning next fall.

Enrollments next fall at two of the junior high schools, Haskell and Carmenita, both in Cerritos, are in danger of dipping near or below 525, the number needed to maintain a quality academic program, district officials said.

Haskell has 533 students this year and a projected enrollment of 420 next year, while Carmenita’s current enrollment of 591 is expected to drop to 540 next fall.

The five-member board decided to shift 162 students to Haskell, taking 86 from Killingsworth in Hawaiian Gardens and 76 from Tetzlaff in Cerritos.

In addition, Carmenita will receive about 80 students that would have gone to Faye Ross Junior High School in Cerritos.

District officials said some teachers and staff members will be reassigned to new schools, but there will be no layoffs. Parents of students affected by the boundary changes will be notified by mail.

The ABC Unified School District has reassigned four administrators for next fall.

Karin Newlin, the principal at Gonsalves Elementary in Cerritos, will replace Marlin Tarpley at Niemes Elementary in Artesia.

Tarpley will be an assistant principal next fall, filling a vacancy created by the resignation of Stephen Hotz, currently assistant principal at Carmenita Junior High School in Cerritos. Whether Tarpley goes to Carmenita or one of the district’s other four junior high schools had not been decided, a district spokeswoman said.

Replacing Newlin at Gonsalves will be Andrew Washington, who has been assigned to special projects for the district this year along with Paulette Fuller.

Both Washington and Fuller are former elementary school principals in the district (Washington at Helen Wittman in Cerritos and Fuller at Willow in Lakewood) who were moved to district headquarters when two schools were closed last year because of declining enrollment, creating a surplus of administrators.

Like Washington, Fuller will become a principal again, this time at Cerritos Elementary School where the current principal, Bonnie Dworkin, is retiring.