Agency Serving Teen Parents Loses Bid for Use of Building

Trustees of the Centinela Valley Union High School District have turned down a final appeal from a nonprofit agency serving teen-age parents that wanted to use a district building in Lawndale for one more year.

Instead, the board approved plans to convert the building to classrooms for other student groups with special educational needs.

The decision Tuesday night left the private Youth and Family Center with eight days to vacate the Larch Avenue building at the edge of the Leuzinger High School campus, which the center has used since 1981. Center officials said they hope to move to new quarters in Inglewood by the end of the month without major disruptions in their services for teen-age parents in the South Bay.

Inglewood Unified School District trustees Monday night expressed interest in housing a small portion of the center’s program--child-care and parenting courses for about 18 mothers--in classrooms or in a trailer at the Hillcrest Continuation High School. But the plan depends on raising funds, initially estimated at $40,000, to set up facilities.

Board members said they are reluctant to take the money from other district programs but hope that it might come from local businesses and the city.

Community Aid Asked

Center Director Gayle Nathanson said she is negotiating with owners of a private building in Inglewood to house the rest of the Youth and Family Center’s programs.

“We will need community help in this relocation,” she said. “We need donations, help in moving, help in constructing the special environment that infants must have.”

Nathanson estimated the relocation cost at $35,000. She said the center last year served 258 teen-agers who were pregnant or parents. In addition, she said, the center--which has an annual budget of nearly $1 million--has a variety of other counseling and training programs that served nearly 5,000 adults and juveniles last year.

The Centinela Valley board voted in June to reclaim the Youth and Family Center building for district programs. Officials said they include programs for such “high-risk” groups as students who are not making it in regular classes, the district’s growing number of immigrants who do not speak English, gang members and illegal aliens who have applied for amnesty and want to take citizenship courses.

Child-Care Provisions

Under the plans approved by the board Tuesday, teen-age parents who live in the area served by the district--Lawndale, Hawthorne and Lennox--will be provided with child care for toddlers 2 years or older while they complete work for their diplomas.

Teen-agers with younger children can study at home through the district’s independent study program, officials said.

The Youth and Family Center began operations in Lawndale in 1981 under the auspices of the Centinela Valley YMCA, which leased the district’s building to provide space for the teen program.

Last year the center left the YMCA’s umbrella and established itself as a nonprofit organization with its own board of directors. That left it without any contractual claims on the building, since school trustees did not approve a new sublease with the YMCA, Nash said Wednesday.

Times staff writer Sebastian Rotella contributed to this article.