Long Beach to Expand All-Year Schools

Long Beach school board members, who had previously approved year-round schools only in the city’s lower-income areas, have agreed to expand the program to the more affluent Eastside by next year.

The board this week directed its staff to recommend at least one Eastside school for conversion to a year-round schedule in the 1991-92 school year.

Board of Education members Jenny Oropeza and Bobbie Smith said year-round programs must be created across the city to ensure equity in the Long Beach Unified School District.

“Now everybody is committed and absolutely firm that we’re going to have it,” Oropeza said.

Board member Harriet Williams said parents are ready to support year-round schools, noting “there’s a lot of interest out there for this kind of school.”

Seven elementary schools in the west and central sections of the city already have year-round classes.

“If it’s good for the Westside and if it’s good for the central area, then it’s good for the Eastside,” Smith told her colleagues.

Until this week, however, the majority of school board members had rejected efforts to expand the controversial program to more affluent areas. Earlier this year, when Smith and Oropeza asked their colleagues to select two Eastside schools for the program, they lost on a 3-2 vote.

Last year, when the board created three year-round schools in the poorer sections of town, it balked at establishing year-round classes at Eastside schools, despite protests by groups such as the Long Beach chapter of the National Assn. for the Advancement of Colored People.

Three years ago, when the board first established year-round programs in four schools, a group of Eastside parents said they did not want such a program in their neighborhood schools.

A year-round program eliminates the traditional three-month summer vacation and instead offers students and teachers a series of shorter breaks. Supporters say this schedule eases crowding by dividing the student body into groups, one of which is always on vacation. Some studies also indicate that students perform better in a year-round program, educators say.

Unless growth trends change or the district gets more money for schools--both considered unlikely--officials plan to convert all the city’s elementary schools to year-round schedules by 1998.

By 2000, officials said, the school board may also have to consider converting middle schools and senior high schools to year-round programs.

The Los Angeles Unified School District decided in February to put all its schools on a year-round program. The plan angered many parents, who argued that it would disrupt family vacations and create child-care problems.