All-Year School Plans Ordered : L.A. Board Also Considers Other Options to Reduce Overcrowding

Under pressure to provide seats for 82,000 additional students by 1990, the Los Angeles school board Monday approved 5-2 the concept of year-round sessions as a solution to overcrowding and authorized the drafting of a plan to implement it districtwide within five years.

The board also instructed its staff to draw up an alternative plan using a staggered school day and it changed the definition of an integrated school. All three options, district officials said, can provide thousands of additional classroom seats.

Year-round school, the staggered schedule and the new integration formula were the most far-reaching of 10 proposals the board approved during a daylong session devoted to the district’s overcrowding crisis.

Alternative Plans

The staff will draw up various combinations of the proposals and present several alternative plans to the board by the first week of February. A vote on the final plan is expected at the end of next month.

Board member Larry Gonzalez, a year-round proponent who represents the Eastside, said a year-round school schedule is inevitable in a district facing the enrollment surge that the Los Angeles district has projected. District officials say year-round sessions could supply as many as 154,000 seats.

“The only question before us is,” Gonzalez said, “what year will it be implemented and to what extent?”

Roberta Weintraub, who represents the East San Fernando Valley, agreed with his assessment but was not cheered by it.

“The message very clearly sent to the public was that this district will be year-round in three to seven years,” said Weintraub, who voted against the year-round provision along with West Valley board member David Armor. “I find that very sad (because) people will find a way out if they can,” such as removing their children from district schools.

Strong Opposition

“The board is underestimating (public) reaction to year-round school,” Armor said. “I read real strong opposition out there.”

Westside board member Alan Gershman said he had heard from about 2,500 parents over the last few months and estimated that “probably 99%” opposed the year-round proposal. However, he was one of five board members to support the measure because, he said, “I don’t see any alternative that will provide what every student in this district needs: a seat in a classroom.”

Supt. Harry Handler told the board that it was “improbable” that any schools would be converted to year-round operation in the 1986-87 school year because of the amount of planning time that will be necessary. Associate Supt. Jerry Halverson said the earliest that a year-round plan could be implemented would be the 1987-88 school session.

A major cause for the delay is the air conditioning of schools before they are placed on year-round operation which, in a separate vote, board members said would be a “high priority district goal.” The board specified, however, that air conditioning would not be a prerequisite.

The board rejected a proposal to increase the average class size by two students, an option that could have provided 28,000 seats. But several board members said such a change would spell educational disaster. This option also was opposed by the teachers’ union, United Teachers-Los Angeles.

Waste of Seats Seen

The board also dropped a proposal to send students from overcrowded segregated schools to under-used segregated schools. Armor, in particular, favored this change, arguing that about 40,000 seats are being wasted.

He also opposed the change in the integration formula, saying the new ratio--which would allow a school to be as much as 70% minority (as opposed to only 60%)--made a “farce” of the integration concept and could invite legal problems.

“The objective is a 50-50 school,” he said. “That is the standard that has been recognized by the courts . . . and that is the definition I subscribe to.”

Other board members, such as Hollywood and Central City representative Jackie Goldberg, countered that the 70-30 definition comes closer to reflecting the “multicultural” makeup of the school district, which currently is 80% minority.

Closer to Home

Goldberg pointed out that the change would also make it possible for many students to attend school closer to home. These are students who currently endure long bus rides from their crowded school communities to schools with available space.

The new integration rule will provide 10,000 additional classroom seats, district officials said.

A staggered schedule, in which a student body would be divided into different groups that start and finish school at different times, could provide as many seats as the year-round option, district officials said.

The district tried the staggered approach in the 1960s and 1970s in the southeast area, officials said. Because of logistical problems and complaints from parents, the schedule was eventually abandoned in favor of a year-round program.

Several Calendars

In February, the district staff will present several year-round calendars for the board’s consideration. More than a dozen different year-round schedules currently are in use in the district. The board indicated Monday, however, that it intends to sharply reduce the number of calendars, possibly deciding to place the entire district on one uniform schedule.

Under the year-round approach, a student body would be divided into several groups that attend school and have vacations at different times of the year, allowing campuses to be used all year instead of closing down during the summer.

Moreover, if the final plan calls for year-round sessions, the board would not convert all schools at once but phase them in gradually. The board also decided that a school would receive at least five months advance notice before being placed on a year-round calendar.

Among the other components the board said it would like to see in a final plan are reopening closed schools, particularly eight campuses in the San Fernando Valley that were shut down because of low enrollment, regrouping grade levels, building temporary or “modular” schools in overcrowded school communities, leasing space from other districts and allowing students at overcrowded schools to attend any other district school with available space.