Year-Round Schools Have Little Support : Education: Parents and teachers prefer other ways to cut overcrowding. The vote only delays the inevitable, since the district will impose the system by the 1991-92 school year.

From Windsor Hills to Pacific Palisades, nearly all Westside schools in the Los Angeles Unified School District have rejected year-round scheduling as a way to increase their capacity.

Instead, they put off the inevitable by choosing other ways of dealing with the district’s burgeoning enrollment: portable classrooms, increased class sizes, and even the transfer of some grade levels to other schools.

In February, the school board ordered parents and teachers at 109 schools to vote on four options that would increase capacity by 23% at the schools; the vote was held earlier this month.

On the Westside, as in other parts of the city, parents consider year-round scheduling the solution of last resort. Of 64 schools districtwide that will go year-round this year, only three actually had a choice because of restrictions on the number of portable classrooms a school may use.

Some schools in the district are so crowded that they are forced to bus students to less crowded campuses. But most schools on the Westside are not that crowded and are on the receiving end of busing. More seats are needed not to accommodate children from the local community, but to make room for children from more crowded schools.

“If you vote for year-round, all you are doing is voting to house children,” said Randall Coakley, a member of the Kenter Canyon parent leadership council.

Coakley said parents at Kenter Canyon in Brentwood might have voted for year-round scheduling if the school were overcrowded.

Of 21 schools ordered to make space in Region D, an area covering Westside and the mid-city, only four chose the year-round option.

In the Pacific Palisades complex, which includes Kenter Canyon, Marquez, Palisades, Canyon and Brentwood Science Magnet elementary schools, capacity will be increased by transferring sixth-graders to Paul Revere Junior High School, which will become a middle school. Revere’s ninth grade will eventually be transferred to Palisades High School.

“That is an example of the kind of creative solution that parents have been involved with to help relieve overcrowding,” said Eugene McAdoo, superintendent of Region D.

At other schools, parents supported more traditional alternatives to going year-round.

Parents at Windsor Hills Magnet School support a plan to place additional bungalows on the campus.

“The vote wasn’t even close,” Principal LaVerne VanZant said. “We had more interest in multi-track than I thought there would be, but the vote was 2 to 1 in favor of our local plan.”

The district plans to spend $12.2 million to buy and install 123 portable classrooms at schools choosing that option. Officials say they are unsure that they will have enough portables to meet the demand.

At Castle Heights Elementary School in West Los Angeles, parents also voted for the bungalows. In the past, proposals to bus in outside students sparked protests from parents who threatened to take their children out of school.

This time, however, there has been little negative reaction, said Linda Rosen, a member of the school’s parent group. “There has been little panic. Parents plan to send their children to the neighborhood school. “

Alta Loma Elementary School, an inner city school near LaFayette Park, will soon be going year-round. With more than 1,000 students, it is one of the few Region D schools without the luxury of choice. “We have no room for portables and we are already busing 60 children to other schools,” Principal Gwenn Carlson said.

The district has 102 schools operating on year-round schedules, which accommodate up to one-third more pupils by dividing students into groups that attend school on schedules that have one group on vacation at all times.

By the 1991-92 school year, all schools will be required to be on a year-round schedule, whether they operate with a single track or multitrack, school officials said. But year-round is no option for Dan Brennan, whose son attends third grade at Brentwood Science Magnet.

“I’m from the old school where they think that kids should have the summer off,” he said. “If my son has 30 days off in May and we wanted to send him to visit his grandparents in the Midwest, it’s cold and all his cousins are in school. It eliminates a whole lot of options.”

INCREASING CAPACITY OF L.A. SCHOOLS

Under a school board mandate to increase capacity by 23%, 63 elementary schools and one junior high will convert to multi-track, year-round operation this summer.

On the Westside, most parents and school officials have chosen instead to add portable classrooms, increase the sizes of classrooms or transfer some grade levels to other schools.

Year-round option Alta Loma Hillcrest Sixth St. Van Ness

Transfer grades Brentwood Science Magnet Canyon Kenter Canyon Marquez Pacific Palisades Elementary

Portable classrooms Bellagio Road Newcomers School Canyon Castle Heights Dublin Fundamental Magnet Hancock Park Kenter Canyon Laurel Open School Magnet Overland Selma Shenandoah Warner West Hollywood Westwood Windsor Hills Magnet

Increase class size Laurel Shenandoah Warner West Hollywood Westwood