HUNTINGTON BEACH : Defunct Site Leased to Lutheran School

The former site of Burke School, closed four years ago because of declining enrollment, is scheduled to open in September as a Christian high school.

California Lutheran High School, which three years ago moved from one closed public school site in Tustin to another in Garden Grove, plans to relocate again into the former Burke site for at least three years.

The Huntington Beach City School District’s trustees Tuesday agreed to lease the facility, near Atlanta Avenue and Bushard Street, to California Lutheran through June, 1993.

Under the lease, which must be approved by the City Council, the private school would pay the district $60,000 rent for the first two years and $72,000 for the third year, in addition to maintaining the facility. The lease payment is lower during the first two years to offset the school’s costs for improving the site, district Asst. Supt. Gary Burgner said.

At the end of the third year, the school board could renew the lease, reopen the site as a district school or sell or lease the building to a new tenant.

Since Burke was closed in 1986, half the facility has been leased as a child-care center for $36,000 a year, Burgner said. The other half has remained empty.

Trustees president Sherry Barlow and Trustees Pat Cohen and Gary Nelson approved the lease, but Trustee Robert Mann abstained.

Mann said he is “not totally opposed” to the deal but is concerned that many of the high school’s 60 students would be driving to school, potentially creating parking and traffic problems.

One district teacher, former school board candidate Ed Zschoche, assailed the lease, calling it a violation of the separation of church and state.

“If Cal Lutheran wants a school, they ought to build it,” he said.