Armor Says ‘Boomlet’ in Births May Block Busing

The number of children from the West San Fernando Valley attending local elementary schools will surge by about 40% in the next five years, spelling trouble for plans to bus more students to the West Valley to relieve crowded schools elsewhere, according to projections by West Valley school board member David Armor.

But skeptical fellow board members questioned the estimates as unusually high. Board of Education President Rita Walters called them “far-fetched.” The skeptics said Armor, a foe of mandatory busing, may be looking for ammunition to prevent an increase in the number of children bused to the Valley from inner-city areas.

According to Armor, the projected growth in local enrollments, a product of the so-called “baby boomlet” brought on by children of the “baby boom” having children themselves, points out the necessity of not selling or leasing any of the 22 West Valley schools closed from 1982 to 1984 for lack of students.

Statistical Models

The figures also show the limits of the program to bus students from crowded schools elsewhere to the West Valley, because many West Valley elementary schools will reach capacity by the end of the decade, Armor contended.

A former Rand Corp. researcher, Armor owns National Policy Analysts in Tarzana, a consulting firm on enrollment and desegregation issues for school districts around the nation. Using data supplied by the Los Angeles Unified School District district staff, Armor developed statistical models of his own to predict West Valley enrollments.

North of Roscoe Boulevard, Armor estimated, last year’s resident enrollment of 10,786 will jump 41.2% by 1989, to 15,231. South of Roscoe Boulevard, he said, the number will climb 38.1%, from 10,678 last year to 14,756 in 1989.

When the number of students bused to West Valley schools is added, Armor argued, the northern part of the West Valley will meet its current classroom capacity by 1987, whereas the southern section will continue to have some excess room beyond 1989.

Busing to Be ‘Non-Issue’

“Because the resident enrollment is increasing, we’re going to run out of capacity,” Armor said. “Busing will become a non-issue because there won’t be any space. The West Valley will not be the solution for everybody’s overcrowding.”

Roscoe Boulevard is the dividing line because it marks the boundary between the two school-district administrative regions that cover the Valley.

District planners will analyze Armor’s projections but had no estimates directly comparable to Armor’s for West Valley enrollments, said Jim Whithorne, who oversees the district’s statistical work on enrollments.

But planners believe that the number of students in all grades throughout the district will grow by 70,000 over the next five years from the current 579,000. On Monday, Los Angeles school Supt. Harry Handler outlined a series of proposals to accommodate the dramatic growth, including year-round schools, reopening nine schools in the West Valley area and modifying voluntary integration guidelines.

Armor is an ardent opponent of mandatory busing, and even though there has been none in Los Angeles since 1981, his anti-busing stand figured prominently in his campaign for a board seat last spring. He defeated a more liberal candidate, Elizabeth Ginsburg.

Two board members, Walters and Jackie Goldberg, suggested that Armor may use the figures to oppose busing to the Valley.

“I would be very surprised if growth exceeded 10%, let alone 40%,” Walters said. “Forty percent is not a plausible number to me.”

Goldberg, who represents Hollywood and the Wilshire corridor, said the projections may be motivated in part by strong anti-busing sentiment among Armor’s West Valley constituents.

“He’s trying to make a case about not selling or renting any school properties,” Goldberg argued. She said Armor may succeed, though not because of his arguments on the growth of West Valley enrollments.

Goldberg said the capacity of West Valley schools, as well as schools districtwide, will increase sharply if the board adopts a year-round schedule or approves Handler’s recommendation to allow schools in the voluntary integration program to have up to 70% white or minority enrollments. Current policy defines integrated schools as those with an enrollment of at least 40%, but no more than 60%, white or minority.

Armor opposes the proposed change in the ethnic ratio because, he said, it detracts from the neighborhood character of public schools.

School board member Roberta Weintraub, who represents the East Valley, said Armor’s projections seem plausible.

She said she had not seen the figures but would not be surprised if they were true, citing the increase of births in the Valley in recent years and the transfer of many students from parochial and private schools to public schools after the end of mandatory busing.