Bumper Crop of Students Spells Trouble, Mom Warns

Along with packets of information for newcomers and cookies baked by neighbors, new residents of the Santa Clarita Valley are receiving a less auspicious welcome: a bright yellow bumper sticker that says, “Warning to Homebuyers. Santa Clarita Valley Schools Are Overcrowded.”

The bumper stickers are being distributed by Santa Clarita housewife Tamsie Irvan, who said she had 1,200 printed at her own expense “so that new people will start demanding that more schools get built” in the rapidly growing city.

“I just had to do something,” said Irvan, a mother of two young children. “I wrote letters to politicians about the problem, and all I got back for the longest time were form letters.”

But some residents are offended by Irvan’s slogan and said it will hinder efforts among parents, developers and local officials to raise money for schools.

“I think it’s counterproductive,” said Richard Howe, a resident who is flying to Sacramento with several neighbors Monday to discuss solutions to school crowding with legislators. “Coming out with negative campaigns is not going to solve the problem.”

In the past six years, more than 4,000 students have entered area schools because of rapid development, officials of the five Santa Clarita Valley school districts said. Total enrollment is about 20,000.

According to projections by Los Angeles County planners, the valley’s population is expected to increase from about 120,000 to about 270,000 by the year 2010 because of housing construction.

The five school districts in the area will need $400 million to make room for a doubling of their enrollment to more than 40,000, based on county population projections for the same year.

“The bumper stickers are just an extension of everyone’s frustration with the lack of funding for schools,” said Jill Klajic, a member of a citizens group called SCOPE, which stands for Santa Clarita Organization for Planning and Environment. “Young families come here expecting good schools, and it’s only fair to warn them that their kids might have to be bused back down to the San Fernando Valley one day because of overcrowding.”

Irvan, who spent $80 on the bumper stickers, gives them away. She said she was inspired to have them printed by a local newspaper editorial that encouraged residents to picket construction sites with signs about school crowding.

Picket Called Off

She and several other residents planned to picket a construction site Saturday but agreed to temporarily postpone the protest after some of her neighbors said it would alienate lawmakers.

“We were told we’d look like a bunch of radical housewives out there if we picketed,” said Gina Galbaway, secretary of a local homeowners association and a supporter of the bumper sticker campaign. “Well, maybe that’s what we are, at least where are children’s education is concerned.”

Santa Clarita City Councilman Carl Boyer III said he thinks the bumper stickers “accurately reflect the views of a great many people out there.”

Boyer and Mayor Howard P. (Buck) McKeon met with state legislators last week as part of “a continuing effort to acquaint them with the problem of overcrowding. It’s obvious it’s going to take a real blitz to get both political parties to come up with funding for school construction.”