Board to Add 202 Portable Classrooms to Cut Crowding

The Los Angeles school board gave preliminary approval Monday to a $12.8-million plan to place 202 portable classrooms on several campuses and bus 5,700 students from inner-city schools to the San Fernando Valley and the harbor area as a way to stem overcrowding.

The district is expecting 13,300 new students to enroll this fall, most of them in schools in East Los Angeles, the East San Fernando Valley and the Hollywood area.

The plan, which is expected to win final board approval next month, would provide classroom space for 9,700 of the expected new enrollees. The district is still working on plans for the remaining 3,600 new students.

Most Crowded Schools

The majority of the bungalows will be installed at 37 of the district’s most overcrowded schools.

At some inner-city high schools, district officials said, the addition of classrooms will not end the overcrowding, so about 5,700 senior high students will have to be bused to what the district has designated as “receiver” campuses.

Five of those schools--Birmingham High, Chatsworth High, El Camino Real High, Granada Hills High and Reseda High--are in the West San Fernando Valley. The sixth is San Pedro High in the harbor area.

At each of those campuses, bungalows will be added to help accommodate the new students.

Students who will be bused to the receiver schools will come from Belmont High, near downtown Los Angeles, and Bell, South Gate and Huntington Park High Schools in the southeast part of the district.

Counseling, Orientation

In addition to the money for transportation and additional classroom space, the district will allocate $95,300 to the receiver schools for counseling and orientation programs. Last fall the district received harsh criticism from parents after hundreds of students unexpectedly enrolled at high school campuses that did not have the counseling staff, classroom space or textbooks to handle the influx.

“At best, this is a means of addressing the overcrowding problem for the 1985-1986 school year,” school Supt. Harry Handler said Monday. “It will take a much more complex approach to be ready for the students we expect in the 1986-87 school year.”

The district has estimated that 1986-87 enrollment will be at least 14,000 higher than 1986-87. To avoid having to deal with that increase at the last minute, Handler promised the board that the district’s staff will make recommendations by this September on where to put the students.

In other action Monday, the board approved a resolution opposing the Los Angeles City Council’s proposal to include school buses among motor carriers that must pay city taxes. The council has estimated that by applying the tax to the district’s fleet of buses, it could raise an extra $1 million a year.

Board members complained that the tax would take needed money away from the district at a time when every penny is crucial.

“If the City Council wants to raise taxes, it shouldn’t do it on the backs of our school kids,” board member Roberta Weintraub said.