Board Details Year-Round School Plan; OK Expected

Under pressure to find solutions to overcrowding, the Los Angeles school board spelled out details Monday of a proposal to convert nearly all schools to year-round operation. Formal approval is expected next Monday.

In anticipation of a projected enrollment increase of 82,000 students by 1990, district officials have spent the last few months examining ways to create more classroom seats as soon as possible. The district intends to build 16 new schools within the next five years, but officials have said the planned construction will not be sufficient to handle the surge and that more new schools cannot be built in time.

Leading the list of 15 options to relieve overcrowding that the board will put to a vote next week is the proposal to operate all 618 district schools year-round by the 1991-92 school year. Under this proposal, which has been vigorously opposed by parents throughout the district, students in each school would be divided into several groups that would use the campus at different times of the year; there would always one group on vacation. This option would provide as many as 154,000 additional spaces.

Exception for Some Schools

The proposal makes an exception for schools with low enrollments--about 300 students or fewer. At the suggestion of board member John Greenwood, who represents the Harbor area and part of South Los Angeles, the board agreed to specify that smaller schools would be allowed to put all students on an identical schedule, with the same vacation, probably during the summer.

According to Greenwood, that would allow those schools to avoid having to combine two grades within one class, a possibility if the school had to divide its small student body into several groups. In addition, if all the students are on vacation during the summer, it would save the district the expense of having to air-condition the schools.

Last week the board reached a consensus to delay implementation of the year-round system until all schools are air-conditioned.

The board will also consider a proposal to enlarge all classes by one or two students for a limited period of time. The proposed change includes predominantly minority schools, which are allowed to restrict class size to no more than 27 students. This option would create 28,000 more seats, according to district staff figures.

‘Detrimental to Education’

Board President Rita Walters, who represents South-Central Los Angeles, spoke out strongly against the class-size option, however, saying that it would be “detrimental to the education of the very children with whom we are concerned.”

Increasing class size, which would be subject to negotiation with the teachers’ union, also has been opposed by Wayne Johnson, president of United Teachers of Los Angeles. Some board members and parents have favored the increase, however, as an alternative to year-round sessions.

Other options the board will consider next week include reopening closed campuses, reorganizing grades, building modular schools and leasing classrooms from neighboring school districts.