Lancaster Ends Fight to Raise Developer Fees, Plans to Make More Schools Year-Round

In a change of tactics to cope with overcrowding, the Lancaster School District has dropped a legal effort to force developers to pay more for new schools and instead plans to fit more students onto existing campuses by adding summer classes.

The district’s Board of Trustees voted 4 to 1 Tuesday night to institute year-round classes at as many as four more of the district’s 14 schools, beginning in July. The district this fall had already put two schools on the year-round schedule, which increases enrollment capacity by about one-third.

In announcing the expanded year-round program, Supt. David Alvarez also disclosed that the district had dropped its controversial legal fight against the city of Lancaster that was the focus of its efforts to combat crowding for much of this year.

Invoking a state law, the 11,200-student district tried to force the city to withhold construction permits for housing projects until developers supplied funds, in addition to the currently required fees, to help build new schools.

But city officials and developers called on the school district to instead make the fullest use of its existing facilities by expanding year-round programs, possibly even districtwide.

Alvarez, who took over as superintendent in July in the midst of the overcrowding fight, agreed. He said the district should take the initiative to solve its overcrowding problems. “We in the school district are responsible to provide the classrooms,” he said.

Under the new approach, year-round classes will be instituted in July at the district’s four most crowded campuses--its two intermediate schools, Park View and Piute, and two elementary schools, Joshua and Sunnydale.

Although those campuses were designed to serve about 600 students each, school officials have already added dozens of portable classrooms for extra students and there are now 1,120 students at Park View, 1,034 at Piute, 971 at Sunnydale and 897 at Joshua.

Converting Piute and Sunnydale to year-round schedules, however, also depends on the district getting a nearly $1.2-million grant from the state for air conditioning and insulation to protect students from the summer heat. The other two campuses already have air conditioning.

Alvarez had asked the board to adopt a policy that all district schools would eventually adopt year-round schedules.

But the board balked at that, with board members voicing concerns about the potential costs and negative public reaction.