Newhall School Shifts to Year-Round Schedule

In what could be a harbinger of change throughout the rapidly growing Santa Clarita Valley, a crowded elementary school in Newhall will switch to a year-round schedule next year.

Trustees of the Newhall School District, citing the need to accommodate a growing student population, voted Monday night to begin year-round classes at Meadows Elementary School on July 1, 1990. Under a year-round system, different groups of students attend school on rotating schedules, thereby reducing the number of students on campus at any one time.

Meadows School, built to hold about 650 students, has more than 760. Newhall officials estimate that the district’s six schools, now with 4,200 students, will enroll 6,500 students in five years.

Trustees of the neighboring Sulphur Springs Union School District discussed year-round schedules last week. Trustees from the valley’s other three school districts have said they will have to consider year-round schedules unless they can build new schools in the next few years.

The Meadows campus will be the first school in the valley to use a type of year-round scheduling called “multitrack” such as that used by the Los Angeles Unified School District.