Local News in Brief : Burbank Schools Set Grade-Shift Hearings

Burbank Unified School District officials have scheduled a series of public hearings to get community reaction to a district proposal to close as many as three schools and change to a system of four-year high schools.

The proposal was made by a committee appointed by the Burbank Board of Education to combat rising costs and declining enrollment. The committee, headed by chairman Brian Bowman, recommended that the ninth grade be transferred to the high schools and that the district’s elementary schools be scaled back to kindergarten through fifth grade.

That configuration would mean the closing of one of the district’s three junior high schools and the conversion of the other two to middle schools for sixth, seventh and eighth grades, Bowman said.

The district now divides students into kindergarten through sixth grade as elementary, seventh through ninth as junior-high and 10th through 12th as high-school students.

Two hearings are scheduled today. The first is at Bret Harte School Auditorium, 3200 Jeffries Ave., at 10 a.m., and the second at Luther Burbank Junior High School Auditorium, 3700 Jeffries Ave., at 7 p.m.

Ralph Emerson School Auditorium will be the site Thursday for a 3 p.m. hearing. The last hearing will be at Burroughs Junior High School Auditorium at 7 p.m., Oct. 21.