Busing to Add 5,879 Pupils to 39 Area Schools

Los Angeles school administrators plan to bus an additional 5,879 students to 39 San Fernando Valley schools in an effort to relieve classroom crowding and continue with the district’s voluntary racial integration program.

Officials of the Los Angeles Unified School District have unveiled a plan detailing which schools will receive additional students, most of whom will come from the inner city. In large part, administrators say, the surge in busing is in response to the largest one-year enrollment increase in nearly 20 years.

The number of children to be bused districtwide in the school year beginning Sept. 10 will grow by 7,542 to about 36,000, school officials believe. An estimated 78% of those additional transfer students will be heading for schools in the Valley, particularly in the West Valley.

But the figures overstate the net increase in students transferred to the Valley, officials cautioned, because they do not account for previously bused students who have since graduated or moved out of the school district.

Specifics Filled In

The overall plan won approval by the board in June, but district planners filled in specifics by deciding which schools would receive how many students. Details were released late last week.

Administrators said Tuesday that West Valley schools will take most of the students because they are less crowded than those in other parts of the district.

Moreover, the West Valley schools were chosen to receive most of the students because they can accept more minority students without violating the school district’s “60/40” policy, whereby no school receiving students in the voluntary integration program is to have an enrollment of more than 60% white or minority students, or less than 40% white or minority students.

“That’s where the space is and where we can keep within the integration guidelines,” said school district spokeswoman Eva Hain.

Reasonable Stop-Gap Measure

The two board members representing the San Fernando Valley called the plan a reasonable stop-gap measure, but worried that Valley schools will have difficulty accommodating the new students.

“There isn’t much choice, but if their projections are off on the number of other students enrolling, we could be in for some overcrowding in the West Valley,” said David Armor, the school board member representing that area. “There may be some errors in the assignment plan.”

Armor said planners may not have counted on rapid enrollment growth in areas surrounding some West Valley schools. Coupled with the newly assigned pupils, that could press some facilities to their capacities, he said.

Armor also said the district staff may not have accurately assessed changing demographics in some West Valley areas, which already may be pushing some schools to the limit of the “60/40” restriction. He said he plans to check the district’s projection methods.

Roberta Weintraub, who represents the East Valley on the board, said the district must look for other alternatives to busing to relieve crowding.

“Racial balances and space availability are being used up this year,” said Weintraub. “That’s why we’ll look at a year-round system for next year.”

Critics find fault with the plan because it requires that students make long commutes past empty classrooms in other parts of the district on their way to the San Fernando Valley. Those schools are now bypassed because the addition of minority students would violate the “60/40” policy.

The district’s 1985-86 enrollment is expected to increase by 13,000 students to a total of 578,000. Officials said the increased enrollment is concentrated in South Central and Southeast Los Angeles, downtown and the East Valley and results largely from immigration from Latin and Asian countries and a 35% jump in the number of births in Los Angeles County.

Plan Considered a Beginning

Administrators consider the plan a beginning in handling an expected growth of 70,000 students in the next five years.

“For now, we have to resolve our housing problems through interim solutions,” said Santiago Jackson, assistant superintendent of the School Utilization Task Force Office.

Board members said that longer-term answers will come through building new schools in the overcrowded areas. The district has applied for $361 million in state bond money to build 16 campuses and expand the facilities at 24 existing schools, but the application and construction process will take three to five years, officials said.

The school board is also expected to consider changing the school year from a two-semester system running from September to June to a year-round, four-quarter system, which supporters believe would thin out the number of students attending some schools at any one time by up to 30%.

202 Bungalows Ordered

Principals of two affected Valley high schools said the school district has provided adequate funding to hire more teachers and staff members, and to purchase textbooks and supplies. But they expressed concern that the delivery of portable classrooms was moving slowly.

In June, the school board approved a $12.8-million plan to place 202 additional bungalows on several campuses to handle the increase in busing. Administrators said about half of the bungalows will be in place for the start of classes on Sept. 10.

One bungalow has been delivered to Birmingham High School in Van Nuys and three more, providing a total of 10 classrooms, are being built, said Principal Jack Jacobson.

Birmingham, which enrolled 2,850 students last year, is expecting an additional 442 pupils, dropping the school’s percentage of Anglo students from about 70% to 60%.

“The best laid plans go awry, and I’m very nervous with school just three weeks away,” Jacobson said of the classroom deliveries.

New Teachers, Books

Jacobson said he has hired an 15 more teachers and six staff members, and purchased $75,000 worth of textbooks to handle the new enrollment. “They told me to order what I needed,” he said.

Most of the students will come from Bell High School in the southeastern part of the district, and about 250 of the mainly Latino group of students are expected to require bilingual education. In response, Birmingham has hired four teachers of English as a second language and purchased bilingual instructional materials.

More Bungalows

Larry Foster, principal of El Camino Real High School in Woodland Hills, said the school will receive eight two-classroom bungalows. Only two have been delivered so far.

Most of El Camino Real’s new students will come from Belmont High School near downtown Los Angeles. About 80% are Latino and 20% are Asian. El Camino Real has hired 12 teachers to handle the higher enrollment, two of them teachers of English as a second language, Foster said.

Last year, the school had an enrollment of about 2,600, with 400 students bused as part of the integration plan. This year, 434 more students will attend the school, most of them from overcrowded schools. El Camino Real is conducting an orientation program over the next two weeks to assess English-language skills and introduce the new students to the school.

“This will add a better ethnic balance,” Foster said of the plan to bring in more students.

ELEMENTARY

School Increase Anatola Avenue 135 Andasol Avenue 94 Apperson Street 34 Calvert Street 136 Dixie Canyon 50 El Oro Way 94 Haskell 40 Kester Avenue 30 Knollwood 70 Lanai Road 100 Lemay Street 130 Limerick Avenue 55 Mayall Street 106 Melvin Avenue 100 Mountain View 100 Nestle Avenue 50 Pinewood Avenue 163 Plainview Avenue 96 Serrania Avenue 100 Sherman Oaks 62 Shirley Avenue 117 Sunland 111 Tarzana 101 Tulsa Street 70 Vanalden Avenue 100 Wilbur Avenue 154 Woodland Hills 200

JUNIOR HIGH

School Increase Lawrence 228 Millikan 293 Mulholland 79 Nobel 325

SENIOR HIGH

School Increase Birmingham 442 Chatsworth 218 El Camino Real 434 Granada Hills 496 Grant 313 Monroe 181 Reseda 172 Verdugo Hills 100