Las Virgenes Schools Mull Year-Round Operations

The Las Virgenes Unified School District is considering operating several elementary schools year-round to reduce crowding, district administrators said Tuesday.

Year-round operation, which would increase a school’s capacity by having some students on vacation while others attend classes, is just one of several alternatives the district is considering, Assistant Supt. Leo Lowe said.

Finding ways to alleviate crowding, a problem mainly in elementary schools in the western part of the district, has become a major concern as the district’s enrollment has risen from 7,400 in the mid-1970s to 8,269.

Lowe attributed the increase to “the birthrate and interest rates.”

The rise in birthrate has been among middle-income whites, who make up the bulk of the area’s residents, he said. And lower mortgage interest rates have made it possible for more young families with preschool and elementary children to move into the 80-square-mile district that stretches from the west end of the San Fernando Valley to Ventura County, he said.

The fastest-growing segment of the district’s enrollment is at the elementary level. Three Agoura elementary schools--Yerba Buena, Willow and Sumac--are operating at capacity, Lowe said.

Handicapped Students Move

To make room for more students at Round Meadow Elementary in Calabasas, two classes for handicapped children were moved to the campus of Lupin Hill Elementary, also in Calabasas. And more portable classrooms will be added to the playground at Yerba Buena, which shares a crowded campus with the 1,162 students of Lindero Canyon Middle School, Lowe said.

There are 3,206 elementary students in the Las Virgenes district, contrasted with 2,807 last year. District officials have plans to build elementary schools, but say that 1990 is the earliest the new classrooms will be available.

High Schools Not Considered

Only the elementary schools are being considered for a year-round calendar, Lowe said, because of the complexity of electives and extracurricular activities at the middle-school and senior-high levels.

On Tuesday, all of the district’s elementary students took home a letter from Supt. Albert D. Marley that outlined the crowding problems and introduced the possibility of a year-round schedule.

Marley’s letter invited parents to attend an “informational” school board session Oct. 6 at Agoura High School to discuss a district committee’s report on year-round education. On Oct. 14, the Las Virgenes Board of Education will formally tackle the issue at its regular meeting.

Other Alternatives Possible

Besides looking at year-round operation, Lowe said, the district will consider redrawing school attendance boundaries, adding portable classrooms, busing students to low-enrollment schools in other parts of the district, building elementary schools and holding double sessions. Under a double-session plan, half of a school’s student body attends classes in the morning and the other half in the afternoon.

Lowe would not predict whether the school board will convert any schools to a year-round schedule. But he said that, if some kind of year-round plan is adopted soon, the new schedule could be in place by next fall.

“Our intent, if we get the green light, is to start some serious planning so it would be a reality by Sept. 1, 1987,” he said.

Use of the year-round schedule to relieve crowding has been controversial in other school districts.

Earlier this year, the Los Angeles Board of Education voted to increase the number of schools operating year-round to accommodate large increases in enrollment. There are now 94 Los Angeles district schools on a year-round calendar, 13 of them in the East Valley.

‘Exciting Opportunity’

Large enrollment increases also forced the Oxnard School District, a kindergarten through eighth grade system, to convert to a year-round schedule. That district began phasing in year-round schools in 1983.

The Las Virgenes “Year-round Education Committee Report”--prepared by a board-appointed committee of teachers, district administrators, parents and others--called year-round school “an exciting and challenging opportunity for this community.”

“The advantages and potential gains in adopting a year-round education calendar have become so evident,” the report stated, “that the committee feels the change could be based on the educational advantages alone.”

Expected to Draw Fire

Lowe and other Las Virgenes administrators say they expect the proposal to spark heated debate within the community.

One way, according to the report, to make year-round conversion more acceptable might be staggering vacations so that all students are off for part of the traditional June-September vacation. Another way might be to pair a year-round school with a school on the traditional calendar so parents would have a choice.