Northeast L.A. Seeks Funds to Keep Its Schools From Bursting at Seams

When Ken Brown finishes teaching his last class of the day at Marshall High School, he doesn’t have to walk across campus to faculty offices as do many other teachers in Los Angeles schools.

Instead, Brown, who teaches educationally handicapped students at the Silver Lake campus, merely opens a sliding door and steps onto the classroom’s outdoor balcony, where he keeps his desk, file cabinets, telephone and other office necessities.

“Sometimes the flies get kind of bad out here,” Brown said from his balcony office which, along with the classroom, was originally a faculty lounge. “But it’s a cozy little spot. There’s really no other place on campus, no available room.”

Brown’s situation is just one example of crowding in Northeast Los Angeles schools, which have experienced a slow but steady influx of new students in recent years, particularly from Asian countries and Central America. The area is projected to be one of the hardest hit as enrollment climbs in the district.

‘Crisis Level’

After years of focusing attention on crowding in schools along the Wilshire Corridor and in East and Southeast Los Angeles, the district is beginning to take steps to relieve the crowding in Northeast area schools, which school board member Larry Gonzalez said has “hit a crisis level.”

The district is awaiting word on its applications for several million dollars from the State Allocations Board to buy additional land and build new classrooms for seven schools in the northeast communities of Silver Lake, Echo Park, Glassell Park, Highland Park, Atwater and Eagle Rock. In addition, enrollment boundary lines in some areas are being redrawn and the district has contacted neighboring districts--including Glendale--about leasing its vacant schools.

By next month, the district should know if the various construction projects will be funded, said Max Barney, branch director of the district’s state construction program. “We expect to get at least half of them,” he said.

The schools that may receive funding are:

Franklin High School in Highland Park, $2.6 million for expanding the campus by 1.6 acres and building 10 new classrooms to accommodate 280 students.

Marshall High School in Silver Lake, $1.4 million for building 12 new classrooms.

Irving Junior High School in Glassell Park, $4 million to acquire 1.9 acres of land and build 13 classrooms to serve 375 students.

Buchanan Street Elementary School in Highland Park, $800,000 for eight new classrooms.

Glassell Park Elementary School in Glassell Park, $1.2 million for eight classrooms and enlargement of the cafeteria.

Loreto Street Elementary School in Echo Park, $2.4 million for eight classrooms, enlargement of the cafeteria and expansion of the outdoor lunch shelter.

Mayberry Street Elementary School in Silver Lake, $2.2 million for eight new classrooms and reconstruction of the administration building.

The district also received tentative state approval for a $155-million project to relieve crowding in Westlake District schools that draw students from the Silver Lake and Echo Park. Under that plan, one high school will be built in the Westlake District, as will one junior high and four elementary schools. Six other schools will be significantly expanded.

The Westlake area’s Belmont High School, along with the grammar schools and junior highs that feed students to it, are the most crowded n Los Angeles. Their total enrollment is now about 28,500 students, a 32% increase since 1979, said Belmont High Principal John Howard.

Busing Cut Possible

If approved, all the plans will relieve crowding in Northeast Los Angeles schools and possibly cut back on the number of students, now 2,500, who are bused from the area to other schools, said Byron Kimball, director of the district’s school facilities services branch.

“We’ve got some schools out there that are seriously overcrowded, and, give it five years, all the schools would be bursting at the seams,” Kimball said. “It’s really a never-ending problem and we’re never going to completely catch up, but if we get this money, things will be looking a whole lot better.”

In the past, the district has relied on traditional methods for easing crowding. These include: purchasing portable classrooms, capping enrollment and busing the additional students to other schools in West Los Angeles and the San Fernando Valley, and keeping the schools open year-round.

Enrollment Projections

Districtwide, officials predict that enrollment in Los Angeles schools will increase by 70,000--about 12%--in the next five years and that about one-fourth of the additional students will live in the area served by Northeast schools.

“I think the Northeast area is really now feeling the major effects of overcrowding,” said school board member Jackie Goldberg. “It’s starting to get out of control.”

Some schools have been affected by more than others in Northeast Los Angeles. Since 1977, overall enrollment in area schools has risen 7.5%, but at many schools the increase has been more than 30%.

For example, at Buchanan Street Elementary School in Highland Park, enrollment has shot up 36% in eight years, to nearly 700 students, Principal Mary Caines said.

Year-Round Calendar

The school was put on a year-round calendar three years ago, which relieved the problem temporarily, but a recent surge in enrollment has again created crowding.

“We were at capacity last year with about 660 students, but now we’re up to almost 700, and we just don’t have room,” Caines said. “We’ll be going into the new school year short one classroom at best.”

The hardest hit areas of Northeast Los Angeles have been the Silver Lake and Glassell Park districts, where most of the schools have experienced enrollment increases of 15% to 40% since the 1977 school year, and where almost all of the schools operate year-round.

School enrollment has increased so much that the school board and area residents have attempted to halt housing development in some neighborhoods because of the effect that more residents would have on school population.

Motion Withdrawn

Earlier this year, for example, after protests from residents and the school board, City Councilwoman Peggy Stevenson withdrew a motion that would have allowed a developer to proceed with plans for a 220-unit apartment complex in Silver Lake, despite a Community Plan that calls for a moratorium on such large projects.

The move was unusual in that the school board requested the City Council to reverse itself and not allow the development firm of Haseko-Calif. Inc. to obtain a hardship exemption for the construction project at Glendale Boulevard and Waverly Drive, formerly the site of the Monte Sano Hospital. Normally, the school board does not involve itself in such disputes.

“We estimate that that project would have added about 60 students to the schools in the area, and we needed that like we need a hole in the head,” Goldberg said.

Impact of New Students

Martha Powell, principal at Ivanhoe Elementary School about three blocks from the proposed development, said that her school is running at about 95% of capacity and that as few as 25 new students “would greatly impact our enrollment and possibly put us in the category of going year-round.”

Possible school crowding has also been raised as an issue by Echo Park residents trying to block a proposed 45-unit apartment building on Morton Avenue, just west of Elysian Park. Besides extra traffic in the area, the apartments would add students to already crowded schools, said attorney Barbara Blinderman, who is seeking a temporary restraining order.

Meanwhile, district officials are looking at school boundary changes as a way to curb crowding.

Next year, for example, boundary changes that are designed to relieve crowding at Irving Junior High in Glassell Park and Franklin High School in Highland Park will take effect. They will send some students who would have gone to those schools to the combined senior and junior high school in Eagle Rock.

Temporary Help

Irving Junior High Principal Willie Williams said the boundary change will provide temporary relief by cutting 150 students out of the district, but projections are that the school may receive as many as 350 new students in the next five years.

Enrollment at Irving has increased nearly 30% since 1977 to about 1,675 students and space has been so tight that classes occasionally have been held in the school’s cafeteria, Williams said.

“Things are under control right now but we do have a problem, and in the future we could have an even bigger one,” Williams said.

Irving is about 150 students above intended capacity. At Marshall High School, which Irving feeds into, the situation is even worse.

Enrollment has soared by more than 30% in eight years at Marshall, and the school is about 400 students beyond its capacity of 2,730.

Outdoor Homeroom

One of the extremes that Marshall High administrators have taken to relieve crowding is the scheduling of about five homeroom classes that meet every morning at the school’s outside eating area. When it is raining, the classes meet in the gymnasium, Principal Donald Hahn said.

“We use every available space for classrooms--teacher lounges, the library and the next step may be the cafeteria and auditorium,” said Assistant Principal Gary Turner. He said 25 portable classrooms have been installed on campus in recent years.

While enrollment climbs in Northeast Los Angeles schools, the district has embarked on a new strategy--contacting neighboring districts to see if they have vacant school sites available for lease.

Of the four cities that border Northeast Los Angeles--Glendale, Burbank, Pasadena and Alhambra--only Glendale school district officials responded favorably, said school facilities director Kimball.

Field School

Last month, Los Angeles officials visited Glendale’s vacant Field Elementary School, which was closed in 1981 because of declining enrollment. But the school would require about $700,000 in repairs and the terms of the lease that Glendale officials have set--65 years at $395,000 a year--”were a little too steep for us,” Kimball said.

“We’re sort of taking a wait-and-see attitude to see if Glendale gets any takers for the Field site,” Kimball said. “We might step in again if the place is still available at some time in the future.”

School board members Gonzalez and Goldberg, whose districts include Northeast Los Angeles, stress that the bulk of any money the school district receives from the delayed state lottery should be used to build new schools and expand others.

“We really need a long-term solution for overcrowding,” Gonzalez said. “We don’t want our kids to feel like sardines. The growth is moving toward the Northeast and this is going to be an enormous problem for the schools.”