4 Long Beach Schools to Begin Operating Year-Round in July

Four elementary schools in the Long Beach Unified School District will begin year-round operations July 5.

District officials approved the plan last year after months of study and debate.

Students will be divided into several groups, each of which will attend class for 60 days, then take 20 days of vacation. Officials in the 66,000-student district, which is growing at a rate of 1,200 students a year, say the plan will increase capacity by 25% in each participating school.

The four schools, all in the largely minority south-central part of the city, are Lee, Burbank, Willard and Stevenson.

District administrators have said they hope eventually to operate all of the city’s nearly 60 elementary schools on a year-round basis, a plan that was recently endorsed by a citizens’ task force set up to deal with school overcrowding.