Bellflower : School Boundaries Altered

Parents of students in the Bellflower Unified School District will have an opportunity tonight to discuss attendance boundary changes approved by the school board last month to accommodate the reopening of Horace Mann Elementary School in the fall. The board will meet at 7:30 p.m. in the board room at the district offices at 16703 S. Clark Ave., Bellflower.

After voting in February to reopen Mann school, the board approved the boundary changes to accommodate shifts in enrollment. Mann school is at 6044 Clark Ave., Lakewood, in the southern portion of the district, which serves Bellflower and northern Lakewood. Mann’s projected enrollment is about 600. The campus is now being used as a before- and after-school day care facility.

Enrollment will stay the same at Frank E. Woodruff Elementary School, 15332 S. Eucalyptus Ave., according to Moss Dart, district spokeswoman.

Enrollment at Washington Elementary School at 9725 E. Jefferson St., which is a former junior high school site, will increase from 640 to 750, said Supt. Kenneth L. Davis. Washington is able to accommodate the greatest number of students but has never been fully utilized.

Exceptions to the boundary changes will be made for current fifth-grade students, who will be allowed to return to the same campus to complete the sixth grade, rather than transfer to another school under the revised boundaries, Davis said.

The board voted to reopen Mann school after a superintendent’s report showed that since 1980, when half of the district’s 16 schools were closed, enrollment has been steadily increasing.