Problems by the Hundreds : Administrators of Inglewood’s Crowded Schools Face Some Unpleasant Decisions

The Inglewood school district, like many others across the state, is suffering from an enrollment boom that is straining school facilities and forcing board members to consider controversial solutions.

The district’s enrollment of about 15,800 students could rise by 300 to 400 students in the fall, school officials predict, making campuses even more crowded.

The district’s class sizes have generally been under state maximums. But, school officials say they have had to convert specialty rooms such as libraries into makeshift classrooms and have brought so many portable classrooms onto some campuses that playgrounds are jammed. The crush of extra students creates what school board member Zyra McCloud called a “sardine-like environment,” crowding cafeterias, hallways, bathrooms and even, at times, the principal’s office.

“It’s been shown that if you put a whole bunch of rats in a cage, they become very stressed,” said Dan Dallape, a fifth-grade teacher at Oak Street Elementary School, which has about 10 temporary classrooms on its campus. “It’s the same with kids. . . . You can only put so many kids in a limited space. A school of 300 has X% behavior problems, but if you have 900 students in the same space, it gets a lot worse.”

Church Hall Used

The city’s elementary enrollment rose so much in 1985 that administrators opened an emergency school at a local church hall for 106 kindergarten and first-grade pupils.

The following year, one crowded elementary school adopted a year-round schedule to maximize classroom space, and two more schools did the same thing soon afterward.

Since then, school officials have placed dozens of temporary classrooms on school playgrounds to absorb the steady waves of new students.

But, school administrators say, certain Inglewood neighborhoods are continuing to grow.

Enrollments in some South Bay districts have been declining in recent years as housing prices have skyrocketed, preventing many families with young children from buying homes in the area. However, such families have been attracted to Inglewood, where development of moderately priced apartments and condominiums has been increasing steadily since the early 1980s.

George McKenna, who took over as superintendent of the district last fall, has ranked the overcrowding among his top four priorities, along with improved education, campus security and a balanced school budget.

“Inglewood will continue to experience growth into the 21st Century,” McKenna said, “and we have to find a place to house all the students.”

The district has received approval from the state for a third high school, which is expected to greatly relieve crowding at Inglewood and Morningside high schools when it is built in the next several years. But, district officials say, the influx of young families has put the most strain at the elementary level.

School trustees have already agreed to install portable classrooms at several elementary school sites to create space for an additional 180 students this fall. They acknowledge, however, that the temporary units, which rent for $300 to $400 per month, are only a stopgap.

“Inglewood is one of our best customers, and they probably will be for a while,” said George Jenkins, who heads Action Mobile Office Rentals Inc., a Carson-based firm that rents more than 500 trailers to school districts from Bakersfield to San Diego. “School overcrowding is bad. The trailers are in heavy use across the state. What else are (school officials) going to do, put the kids out on the street?”

Political Pressure

Inglewood trustees have been wrestling for years with the problem of rising student enrollments and limited space. Some Inglewood school officials and community activists say that board members in the past have bowed to political pressure from parents.

When parents have objected to such strategies as changing attendance boundaries, transferring students to less crowded schools outside their immediate neighborhoods and adding more year-round schools, the board has often adopted less controversial measures, such as adding temporary classrooms.

“If enough people raise enough hell, the board, because it’s so political, will probably back off,” said former board member W. R. (Tony) Draper. “Parents will come in and pound on the podium, and all of the school board members who want to be elected will back off.”

However, school board President Larry Aubry said he hopes current board members, all of whom were elected within the past few years, will adopt a long-term strategy instead of relying on the ad hoc measures of the past. He and other board members acknowledged that they face making potentially unpopular decisions in the next year.

“People are going to object to everything,” said Thomasina Reed, who was sworn in as a board member last month.

Under study for the 1990-91 year is a plan to convert more schools to year-round schedules, which administrators say is an effective way to distribute the students among available facilities but an unpopular one among many parents.

“I, for one, am not in favor of year-round schools,” said Norma Smith, president of the Inglewood PTA Council, who has two children in the district. “I think it messes up too many people’s schedules.”

Under the year-round plan, students are divided into groups, and vacations are rearranged to keep the school operating all year long. A year-round schedule allows school officials to get about 25% more use of school facilities at a negligible cost, according to State Department of Education statistics.

The state has begun offering fiscal incentives to districts that adopt year-round schedules but has no plans to mandate such a program, because of strong opposition in some districts.

“Big Brother in Sacramento is not going to force year-round schools down anyone’s throat,” said William L. Rukeyser, a spokesman for state Supt. of Public Instruction Bill Honig.

Among the Inglewood schools being considered for year-round schedules are Centinela, W. Claude Hudnall, Beulah Payne and Oak Street elementary schools. They would join the district’s existing year-round schools, William H. Kelso, Clyde Woodworth and Highland elementary schools. District officials plan to hold hearings during the coming school year to outline the overcrowding problem and gauge community reaction before such changes are made.

Other proposals made by the district include redrawing attendance boundary lines to shift the load of the school-age population away from the crowded center of the city, and requiring some parents to transport their children to schools outside their neighborhoods.

A plan proposed last month that did not win board approval would have provided free child care for those students now attending Payne, Oak or Hudnall if their parents would transport them to Daniel Freeman Elementary School, the only Inglewood elementary school that is under capacity. The estimated cost for the child care would have been $25,000, significantly less than the cost of busing the students.

Limits on Development

Part of the solution to the crowded schools may come from City Hall.

City officials, acknowledging that housing developments have caused congestion on many Inglewood streets, have begun studying a limit to multifamily developments in some areas of the city.

Although the school district imposes a fee on new developments to help pay for schools, district officials say that the income from the developers is modest and that the schools still cannot keep up with the number of new students moving into high-density apartments and condominiums.

District officials say the ultimate solution is more money from Sacramento to build new schools.

Last year, state voters approved an $800-million bond issue for kindergarten-through-12th-grade schools, but state officials say it will pay for only part of a lengthy wish list of new buildings and improvements needed across the state.

“California is facing the biggest boom in school enrollment since the World War II era,” Rukeyser said. “Every year for the next five years, California will acquire between 120,000 and 160,000 new students. That means 11 new classrooms are needed across the state every day--including weekends and holidays.”