School Boundary Changes Sought to Ease Overcrowding

A Glendale school district task force on Tuesday recommended expanding the attendance areas of two nearby schools to ease overcrowding at Horace Mann and John Marshall elementary schools.

The boundary change, the first proposed change in the district since 1977, would reassign 129 students from Mann to John Muir Elementary School and 22 students from Marshall to Glenoaks Elementary School.

School board members expressed concern at a board meeting Tuesday about a school overcrowding problem brought on by a development-oriented City Council and the recent influx of immigrants to the southern end of Glendale.

The task force report also recommends strengthening procedures for verifying students’ home addresses. The new procedures would require parents to produce one utility bill and a rental agreement or two utility bills to enroll their children. Parents currently are only required to produce a rental agreement.

In the past three years, district enrollment has grown dramatically at the elementary school level. Mann and Marshall, located in the southern part of the city where a large numbers of Asian, Latino and Armenian immigrants have settled, have been hardest hit by this growth.

Last year, the school board approved plans for a 12-classroom addition at Marshall and a 20-classroom addition at Mann. But construction is not expected to be completed until September, 1989. Until then, the report says, “these school sites cannot absorb any further growth.”

And even with the construction, district projections show that enrollment at the two schools may eventually outgrow the capacity of the planned additions.

In contrast, the task force headed by David Kanthak, assistant superintendent for business services, found that nearby Muir and Glenoaks elementary schools have large playgrounds and significantly lower enrollments.

The new attendance area for Muir would include property bounded by Colorado Street to the north, Raleigh Street to the south, Adams Street to the east and Everett Street to the west. Children living north of the Ventura Freeway between Sinclair Avenue to the east and Verdugo Road to the west would attend Glenoaks Elementary School.

Meetings are scheduled at the affected schools during May to “allay fears” parents may have, said James McGlashen, director of testing and evaluation.

The board is expected to vote on the boundary changes in June.