San Diego

The difficulty of solving crowding in Southeast San Diego schools continued to vex city schools trustees Tuesday as they wrestled with a number of proposed temporary solutions, beginning with the fall term.

In the first of several planned sessions on the issue, the board met into the evening on ways to juggle 32 existing portable classrooms, to build 20 more and to open an unused school in Clairemont so the district can bus sixth-grade students from Sherman, Balboa and Brooklyn elementaries in Southeast to the site.

The board indicated that it no longer considers expansion of multitrack, year-round schools its major solution to crowding, responding to complaints by angry residents of the predominantly Latino and black Southeast area that their students have borne the brunt of the complex year-round schedules and have suffered academically.

Trustees will take up the issue again next week. Potential long-term solutions for new schools could cost up to $50 million and will also be discussed over the next several weeks.

The district now has no funds to carry attempt permanent solutions beyond construction of more portable classrooms and busing children to under-used schools in other neighborhoods.