Board Gets Options for Easing Crisis at Schools : Education: Plans call for every elementary school in the L.A. district to adopt some form of overcrowding relief.

Plans to dramatically alter the school day or year for most of the Los Angeles Unified School District’s elementary school students were unveiled, to mixed reviews, before a divided school board Monday.

The plan, developed by district staff, called on every elementary school to adopt some form of overcrowding relief to raise school capacity 23% during the next three years.

Magnet schools, crowded two-semester schools and schools that receive students from overcrowded campuses but still have additional classroom space would be the first to increase their capacities, either by going year-round or employing double sessions and a longer school year, beginning next fall.

The remainder of the district’s elementary schools would adopt one of those options for the 1991-92 or 1992-93 school year.

Even then, the district will have to continue busing thousands of students from overcrowded schools, because most of those schools are already on the recommended year-round calendars.

“When we are busing 18,000 children and this only gets 7,000 off the bus, I don’t think it goes far enough,” said East Los Angeles board member Leticia Quezada.

The plan gave seven options that would provide more space throughout the district--though most would not be in the areas that are the most overcrowded.

The options are:

* Portable classrooms. Since 1982, the district has placed about 1,000 portable classrooms at campuses. Each air-conditioned bungalow accommodates about 30 students. Current guidelines say bungalows must not increase an elementary school’s population to more than 1,000 students or reduce its playground space to less than two acres. Those guidelines could be changed.

* New construction. The district has about 5,300 seats under construction, including 2,900 at the elementary school level. By 1993, district officials expect to complete more than 10,000 elementary seats.

* Reopening schools. Twenty-one former school sites--closed because of dwindling enrollment on the Westside and in the San Fernando Valley in the 1980s--could be reopened. Seven are vacant, four are being leased to private schools, four others are being used as district administrative offices, and six house magnet schools, special education or adult classes.

* Year-round schools. The traditional school calendar could be reorganized into instructional blocks, with vacations distributed throughout the year, increasing campus capacity.

* Increasing class size. Each elementary class could be increased by two students, to a maximum of 35 students.

* Extending the school year. Schools would be divided into two groups of students. One group would attend class from 7:15 a.m. to 11:49 a.m. The other group would attend from noon to 4:34 p.m. The school year would be extended from 180 to 220 days. Some classrooms would be set aside for enrichment activities.

* Shared instructional environment. Groups of teachers would share classroom space, relying on such educational approaches as team teaching or non-graded teaching.

The board will very likely adopt a combination of measures to deal with overcrowding, and may allow individual schools some latitude in selecting the options that work for them.

Gordon Wohlers, head of the office that coordinates use of classroom space, recommended that schools not choosing to use a multi-track year-round or extended school year plan be forced to combine a single-track year-round system with another of the instructional options, such as increased class size.

Copies of the plan outlining the options will be available at each elementary school, in English or Spanish, and the board will hear public comments at hearings. The first is scheduled for Thursday, Jan. 4, from 6 to 8 p.m. at the board office on Grand Avenue.

Board members had expressed optimism that they would avoid the bickering and factionalism that have plagued earlier attempts to resolve the district’s overcrowding problems.

But Monday’s discussions revealed a division that goes deeper than the question of whether the district should convert to year-round schools and hinges on the issue of equity.

Whatever solutions they ultimately approve, a key question to be settled is whether the changes will be imposed districtwide or left to the individual schools to adopt.

West Valley board member Julie Korenstein suggested that each school choose the option that best meets its needs.

South-Central board member Rita Walters countered: “That’s how we got into this hodgepodge in the first place. . . . Whatever decisions are made . . . need to be made by the Board of Education.”