Kindergarten Rolls Up Sharply : Increase in Southern Valley Leads School District

More students started kindergarten in the southern part of the San Fernando Valley this fall than in any other part of the Los Angeles Unified School District, the Board of Education was told on Monday.

The enrollment figures provided the first indication that an expected increase in the number of children in the Valley has started to reach classrooms.

Kindergarten enrollment in the area the school district calls Region E, stretching from the Santa Monica Mountains north to Roscoe Boulevard and from Woodland Hills east through North Hollywood, was up 11.7% over last year. About 5,695 children attend kindergarten in that area, district officials said.

In the district’s other Valley area, Region F, from Roscoe Boulevard to the Santa Susana Mountains and from Chatsworth east through Sunland-Tujunga, kindergarten enrollment increased 7.1% over last year. The 5,071 youngsters who enrolled in kindergarten in that area give the region the third largest increase in kindergarten enrollment in the district. The second-largest enrollment gains were in the area that includes South-Central Los Angeles and the airport.

2.3% Increase

Districtwide enrollment in grades kindergarten through 12 was 578,777 students, according to the report. That represents an increase of 13,207, or 2.3% above last year.

District officials expect 13,000 to 14,000 new students to enroll in Los Angeles schools every year until 1990, pushing enrollment to 700,000.

The Los Angeles school district is already the nation’s second-largest. To handle the expected large enrollment increases, Supt. Harry Handler has proposed placing the entire system on a year-round schedule and changing ethnic ratios to allow schools to have larger minority enrollments.

In general, Valley schools experienced increases in elementary schools and slight decreases at the junior-high level. Enrollment at high schools remained about the same.

But only the enrollment figures for kindergarten reflect an increase in the number of children in the Valley, said Richard Caldwell, the district’s deputy controller and supervisor of the enrollment report. That is because classrooms at all other levels contain many students who do not live in the Valley but participate in the district’s voluntary integration program or who are bused here because their home schools are crowded, Caldwell said.

He added that he expects to be able later to break down enrollment figures according to who lives in the Valley and who lives elsewhere.