L.A. School Board Goes to City Hall to Find Room for Kindergartners

The proposal is a simple one--take a room in City Hall, bring in a teacher, some desks and open a kindergarten for 30 children of city employees.

For the Los Angeles Unified School District, which is saddled with terrible overcrowding and lack of funds to build new campuses, the proposal also offers a novel opportunity to run a school in a non-traditional setting.

District officials, who say the plan is the first of its kind in Los Angeles, hope to open the City Hall kindergarten Aug. 19. If it flourishes, school officials say they would like to expand the concept at the workplaces of other public agencies and private businesses.

The City Hall kindergarten “is a small step, but we’re looking at it as a model. It’s something the district would love to pursue,” said Margaret Jones, an administrative consultant for the district’s priority housing program.

On Tuesday, the school board demonstrated support for the concept by voting to seek an exemption from the state’s stringent building code, which requires that schools and hospitals be built to higher earthquake standards than regular buildings. The district has already reached an agreement with the city of Los Angeles, which will provide the classroom space, utilities and maintenance without charge, said Patsy Lane, the city’s child-care coordinator.

The enthusiasm with which school board members have greeted the City Hall kindergarten underscores the severity of overcrowding at Los Angeles Unified, whose student population of 635,000 is growing by 15,000 each year, requiring some classes to be taught in hallways and on auditorium stages.

The school district must build scores of schools in the next few years just to keep up with enrollment. But the most overcrowded areas are often also ones where there is little land or money available for new campuses.

As a result, innovative school ventures with public and private agencies are “absolutely an essential complement of our future,” said Roberta Weintraub, a board member who represents the East San Fernando Valley, where many schools are bursting with pupils. “I want to see this (become) a model for industry in this city. . . . I want to see this replicated.”

District officials say they are negotiating with the Department of Airports, among other agencies and businesses, to open a school near Los Angeles International Airport. Jones adds that the district is willing to consider “anything and everything that will be beneficial to children.”

“We could have a kindergarten-through-12th-grade school in some business office or public agency or high-rise or hospital,” Jones said. “The biggest problem is making sure the facility is safe.”

Some critics also worry about how students will find recreational space in hospitals or high-rises, but Jones says that schools could make arrangements with local community centers or parks to use their facilities. The Westside Alternative School and the Bravo Medical Magnet, both of which lack spacious grounds, already have made such arrangements.

In the case of the City Hall kindergarten, the transition could be fairly smooth--if the state grants a building waiver. The city of Los Angeles has operated a preschool center for about 70 children of city employees since 1989 and officials say it will convert one of the adjacent rooms into a kindergarten.

City officials expect there to be more applications than slots available, Lane said.

The preschool and kindergarten, located on the ground floor of City Hall South, can be reached only by those who show identification, Lane said.

For recess and other playtimes, there is an outdoor courtyard that also is off limits to most City Hall visitors. Lane said parents often visit their children at lunch. The proximity promotes bonding between parent and child and has led to lower absentee rates, according to a city study of the preschool.