Santa Ana Unified to Name Sixth School Site : District, Now Growing by 1,000 Students Per Year, Will Soon Be County’s Most Populous

Orange County’s fastest growing school district, Santa Ana Unified, tonight is scheduled to name the site for another elementary school, the sixth to be built and opened by the fall of 1988.

The six new schools will cost about $60 million--averaging $10 million each. The state will pay 90% of building costs with the district picking up the rest.

The district’s enrollment has grown by some 1,000 pupils per year for the last decade, primarily due to immigration of Mexicans, Central Americans and Asians, school officials said. About 70% of the district’s pupils are Latinos, 15% are white, 12% Asian and 3% black.

The Santa Ana Unified school board has previously picked sites for five other elementaries that are, or soon will be, under construction. Tonight the board picks a sixth site, and school district officials said the choices are a site near 4th and Bristol streets and one near near McFadden Avenue and Bristol Street.

“We hope to have this sixth school open, along with the other five, in the 1988-89 school year,” said Anthony J. Dalessi, an assistant superintendent of Santa Ana Unified.

Dalessi added that state funding for all six new elementary schools is scheduled to be approved by the state Allocation Board in Sacramento on Wednesday. He said he has already been informed by state officials that the board will approve the building funds, and Dalessi said that the district has funds available for its 10% share of the building costs.

The school-building boom in Santa Ana Unified contrasts with neighboring school districts, such as Garden Grove Unified, Fountain Valley, Newport-Mesa Unified and Orange Unified, all of which have had large drops in pupil enrollment over the last six years. Those enrollment plunges have resulted in many schools closing in those and other central and north Orange County school districts.

Dalessi estimated that 1,000 new pupils will register in district schools this fall, bringing enrollment to 37,000. “We definitely expect to surpass Garden Grove Unified as the largest school district in Orange County by October, when the official student census is taken,” Dalessi said.

Garden Grove Unifed Supt. Ed Dundon on Monday said he agrees that Santa Ana Unified will overtake his district this year as the most populous in student enrollment in Orange County. “They (Santa Ana Unified) have only been a few hundred behind us this past year,” Dundon said.

Garden Grove Unified last school year had 36,426 students. “The enrollment this fall will be down slightly, to 36,196 students,” said Alan Trudel, public information officer for Garden Grove Unified. He said that the district has had small enrollment losses in recent years, compared to big decreases in the 1970s. Garden Grove Unified hit its enrollment peak in the 1960s, when the district had 54,000 students.

Santa Ana Unified has a new high school under way, in addition to the six new elementaries that are to be built by fall, 1988. The new Century High School is under construction at McFadden and Grand avenues, which is also the location for one of the six new elementary schools opening in 1988.

The sites for the other new elementaries are on Bristol Street between Warner and Edinger avenues; on Walnut Street near 1st Street (across the street from the existing Santa Ana High); in the 1800 block of South Broadway and on East Fruit Street near Grand Avenue.

Dalessi said each of the six new elementary schools will accommodate 600 students.