Local News in Brief : 4-Year High School OKd for 9th Graders

The Long Beach Unified School District voted Thursday to send the district’s estimated 4,300 ninth-graders to four-year high schools next September. In addition, the board decided to create six pilot middle schools to accommodate students in sixth, seventh and eighth grades during a three-year transition period in which the district’s 11 remaining junior high schools will be converted to middle schools.

“Most of the parents I’ve talked to are in favor of this,” said board member Jerry Shultz. “The concept of four-year high schools isn’t radical; it’s something that has been done across California.

The six pilot middle schools will be DeMille, Franklin, Hughes, Jefferson, Lindbergh and Washington junior high schools.

Since the early 1920s, ninth-grade students in Long Beach have been grouped with seventh- and eighth-graders on junior high school campuses, while senior high schools have consisted of 10th, 11th and 12th grades.

Officials proposed changing to four-year high schools and middle schools to help offset overcrowding in the 67,000-student district. Shifting students upward, they said, would create more space on elementary school campuses, where the crowding is most acute.

Some parents had opposed the change, arguing that students would be adversely affected.