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Board Approves Funds to Cool Year-Round Schools

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Times Staff Writer

The Los Angeles school board gave a firm signal to the district’s controller Monday that it wants to spend $6.2 million to alleviate classroom heat in 43 year-round schools, including eight in the San Fernando Valley.

In a 7-0 straw vote, the board instructed the controller to include the funds in the district’s proposed 1985-86 budget to design and install air-conditioning systems. The budget is expected to be approved at the board’s Aug. 26 meeting.

The allocation, which was recommended without discussion, is part of a six-year heat-reduction program launched in 1983 to air-condition all classrooms in the district’s 94 year-round schools. According to a district official, most of the 94 schools are not fully air-conditioned, a situation that causes many of their 120,000 students to swelter in summer temperatures that often exceed 90 degrees.

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The heat is particularly severe in Valley schools, where teachers and students say it is common for classrooms to reach 100 degrees or more during the summer.

The Valley schools covered in the current allocation are Morningside School in San Fernando; Camellia Avenue, Fair Avenue, Victory Boulevard and Oxnard Street schools in North Hollywood, and Haddon Avenue, Montague Street and Pacoima schools in Pacoima.

According to Byron Kimball, who oversees district building and maintenance, the school board is following a complex schedule that calls for phased installation of air conditioning to spread the cool classrooms around the district, rather than completely air-condition any one school all at once.

The schedule devised by Kimball’s staff provides that, with the $6.2 million, air-conditioning at Morningside and Victory will be completed in the 1985-86 school year.

The proposed allocation also will allow the district to immediately begin engineering and design work on cooling systems for some classrooms at Oxnard, Camellia, Haddon, Montague and Pacoima schools, with construction to take place in the 1986-87 school year.

Air-conditioning of 17 other schools, including Roscoe School in Sun Valley and Vaughn Street School in San Fernando, is to be completed in the 1987-88 school year, according to the district’s plan. However, no district funds for those schools have been appropriated.

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According to Kimball, enough money to complete the district’s air-conditioning of year-round schools may come from the state Legislature, where a bill that would provide $25 million for cooling crowded year-round schools is making progress.

That measure, authored by Assemblyman Mike Roos (D-Los Angeles) and proposed by United Teachers of Los Angeles, does not identify specific schools to receive the funds, but authorizes the State Allocation Board to award grants based on climate and attendance.

The other schools included in the Los Angeles school board’s proposed allocation are in the southeast and central-city areas of the city.

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