L.A. School Board Votes to Reopen 3 Campuses in 1987

Three West San Fernando Valley schools closed because of low enrollment will reopen in 1987 to help accommodate students from crowded campuses, the Los Angeles Unified School District Board of Education decided unanimously Monday.

The board resolution did not name the three schools, but specified that two elementary schools and a junior high--apparently Hughes Junior High in Woodland Hills--would again be opened to students.

The board also voted to keep ninth-grade students on six West Valley high school campuses, rejecting a proposal to move them back to junior high campuses to create additional space for 10th-, 11th-, and 12th-graders.

East Valley representative Roberta Weintraub led the fight to retain the 2-year-old program that placed ninth-graders on the high school campuses, arguing that removing the students would be “a murderous situation” that would upset parents who had returned their children to public schools.

Year-Round Calendar OKd

The plans involving Valley schools were part of a complex set of proposals to relieve crowding at many of the district’s 618 schools. The board approved the most controversial part of the plan, increasing the number of schools on a year-round calendar, by a 5-2 vote, with Weintraub and David Armor, who represents the West Valley, dissenting.

There will be few changes in district operations in the 1986-87 school year. The real changes, in the wake of Monday’s action, will come in the 1987-88 year, when the board directed that the three Valley schools be reopened.

During the late 1970s and early ‘80s, the district closed 19 Valley campuses because of low enrollments. Eight of those schools are empty; 10 campuses have either been leased to private schools or are being used for school-district purposes. One campus was sold.

An announcement about which schools will be reopened will be made in the fall, Supt. Harry Handler said.

But the resolution approved by the board specified that a junior high and two elementary schools in the West Valley would be reopened. And only one Valley junior high--Hughes--has been closed.

Portable Classrooms

According to a spokesman for the district’s building services division, the Woodland Hills junior high could hold from 1,200 to 1,500 students, depending on the number of portable classrooms added to the site.

Although 18 elementary schools have been closed, during hearings on the year-round proposal Parthenia Street Elementary in Sepulveda and Prairie Street Elementary in Northridge were the only ones named as possible candidates for reopening. Both were closed in 1984.

Justification for reopening Parthenia was based on the fact that there are 250 elementary-age children in the school’s attendance area and another Sepulveda school, nearby Langdon Avenue Elementary, is quickly reaching capacity. If Parthenia is reopened, some Langdon students might be transfered to Parthenia.

District researchers estimate that there are only 158 elementary-age students in the current attendance area of the Prairie Street school. But enrollment at a number of nearby schools is near capacity.

The 6-1 vote to keep ninth-graders on six West Valley high school campuses was a resounding vote of confidence in the district’s reconfiguration plan, under which elementary schools have kindergarten through fifth grades, junior highs have sixth through eighth grades and high schools ninth through 12th grades.

Original Groupings

The proposal before the board Monday would have returned the West Valley schools to their original groupings of kindergarten through sixth grades at elementary schools, seventh through ninth grades at junior highs and 10th through 12th grades at high schools.

Reconfiguration was initiated in the fall of 1984 to put more students at six high schools where enrollment was sagging: Reseda; Birmingham in Van Nuys; Canoga Park; Cleveland in Reseda; and El Camino Real and Taft, both in Woodland Hills.

The addition of ninth-graders provided enough students for the high schools to continue providing a comprehensive curriculum, including art, music, and advanced math, science and languages.

Weintraub told fellow board members that returning ninth-grade students to junior highs would cause chaos and disruption.

Only Jackie Goldberg, the Hollywood-Central City representative, voted to return ninth-graders to junior high.