Schools OK More Portables to Ease Crowding : Education: City district says another 20 are needed on top of 28 being built, as enrollment continues to rise.

At least 20 more portable classrooms--in addition to 28 already being built at a cost of $1.5 million--will be needed this fall by the San Diego city school district because the projected number of new students continues to increase beyond forecasts made earlier this spring.

School board trustees voted Tuesday to solicit bids for the additional 20 portables so that construction could begin by Aug. 1 for completion by Nov. 1, which still more than a month after most of the district’s 179 facilities open for the 1990-91 school year.

District planners estimate the number of new students will be more than 3,100 above the 118,600 now enrolled. Earlier, the district projected an additional 2,000 students for this fall.

The move for new stop-gap measures to handle severe crowding came as trustees heard pleas Tuesday from the Mid-City and Scripps Ranch/Mira Mesa communities for short- and long-term solutions to the student crunch in those areas.

Implementing the complete list of recommendations might run as much as $120 million to $140 million, Trustee Jim Roache estimated.

That figure would be in addition to the $50 million or more already sought by residents in the Southeast and Paradise Hills areas of San Diego, who presented their laundry list for new schools in February.

“We may have created expectations out in the communities that we can’t meet,” said Roache, referring to the lack of money to build facilities to handle growth through the year 2000, beyond those already planned or under construction as a result of a successful June, 1988, bond measure.

Schools Supt. Tom Payzant said his staff will take the newest reports, along with those submitted in February, and return to trustees in September with the recommendations, ranked in priority for any money that becomes available.

Board President Kay Davis suggested that administrators explore the possibility of another bond issue next year. The district might be able to place another measure on the ballot, which would need only a 50% plus-one majority because the district has unused taxing authority approved by voters in 1974.

The two reports presented Tuesday call for more funding and space at Wilson Middle School in Mid-City, a new middle school to augment Wilson, a new elementary school in City Heights, reconstruction of Hamilton Elementary, new cafeteria facilities at Wagonheim Junior High in Mira Mesa, a new middle school in Scripps Ranch, along with more portables and various school boundary changes to ease short-term crowding.

Payzant said he will come back with recommendations on a few of the ideas by month’s end so they can be implemented in September if approved by trustees.

Among the plans: transfer of Central Elementary’s fifth-grade classrooms--now at Wilson--back to Central this fall, elimination of an optional attendance zone between Wilson and Mann middle schools, boundary changes between Mason and Hickman and Jerabek and Miramar Ranch in the Mira Mesa/Scripps Ranch area, and transfer of students of Miramar Naval Air Station dependents to the new Hage Elementary School, from Walker and Mason elementaries.

In February, the board approved $4 million in similar short-term fixes for students in Southeast San Diego, including busing sixth-graders from Sherman, Brooklyn and Balboa elementaries to MacDowell Elementary in Clairemont, a school closed several years ago because of low enrollment in that area. New portables were also placed at several schools.