New Meaning for the Term <i> Melting Pot</i>

When the Los Angeles Unified School District switches to the new year-round calendar this summer, thousands of children will be expected to learn in classrooms that resemble sweatboxes.

The new term will start in August for most students. That change has been debated for years. Yet fewer than one-third of the district’s 648 schools are fully air-conditioned. How can children be expected to learn when temperatures soar?

Board members and district officials insist correctly that severe budget problems rule out providing air conditioning for every school before the new calendar takes effect. The district does plan to air-condition all schools that enroll children during the entire year, including some campuses that have been on that schedule for nearly a decade.

The state provides some money but only for those schools that use several overlapping calendars to accommodate as many as one-third more than the intended capacity. Only a fraction of the district’s campuses will operate in that fashion.

As the new calendar looms closer, the board is applying for additional state funds authorized by Proposition 146, a school bond measure passed by voters last November. The district hopes to get much of the $40 million allocated for air conditioning and insulation, but much more is needed.

State funds are without question in short supply. Gov. Pete Wilson recently announced additional cutbacks that will require the Los Angeles district to lop another $88 million off the budget by June. That’s on top of $220 million in cuts made last fall.

To stretch the limited state funds, the district has switched from central air conditioning to industrial-sized window units. A pilot program proved last year that the portable units were nearly as effective in classrooms for less than half the price. The cost is about $7,000 per classroom.

Year-round schools that have recorded the hottest temperatures over the past two years have the highest priority. That policy will benefit multiple-track schools in the San Fernando Valley. But there are many other schools, in the Valley and elsewhere, that need relief.

Who will help? Surely the governor has friends who care enough about education to buy air conditioners. Can Wilson’s new education adviser, Maureen DiMarco, come up with an imaginative plan to cool off schools?

Can the as-yet-unnamed new group of business and civic leaders that will study how to improve Los Angeles schools raise funds to pay for, say, 1,000 window units?

Chronic overcrowding has forced the Los Angeles district to put all schools on a common year-round calendar to accommodate a surging enrollment. But no student should have to learn in a hothouse.