Schools Brace for Expected Record Influx : Education: The enrollment process is swamped with newcomers, many of whom speak little or no English.

The Long Beach Unified School District will open its classrooms later this month to a projected 75,345 students, the largest enrollment in district history and a record increase of more than 3,500 students over last year.

The surge, while not unexpected, has stretched district resources as schools try to register, immunize, test and place a flood of newcomers, many of whom speak little or no English.

“We’ve had over 100 parents report to us since 9 o’clock,” Assignment Center staffer Nilo Lipiz said at noon Thursday. “We expected large numbers. We didn’t expect so many.”

The Assignment Center is in charge of processing students whose first language is not English. From February to the beginning of August, the center registered more than 2,200 such students for the new school year. Then the rush began, Lipiz said. He expects the center to have handled more than 1,000 students in August, and perhaps as many this month.

The number of district students with a limited ability to speak English has risen from 2.7% in 1979 to 30.5% last year. Over that same period student enrollment has increased from 55,263 to 71,454.

The Assignment Center has nearly doubled its staff for this year’s record crunch. In addition, the center staff this week will train schoolteachers, administrators and nurses to handle registration chores at school sites starting Sept. 11, the first day of school. The process includes directing parents to fill out layers of forms with the help of translators, having students take placement tests and obtain necessary immunizations and helping families sign up for appropriate programs or schools.

For many students, the assignments will be imperfect. The district has 155 designated bilingual classrooms, but only 66 will be staffed by teachers with bilingual certificates. None of those teachers speak Cambodian, the third most common language in Long Beach. Where needed, teachers will use classroom aides, fellow students and volunteers to act as translators.

Budget difficulties have exacerbated the problems created by growth. The school board trimmed its budget by voting to reduce library and nursing staffs through attrition. Although the combined staff reductions are not expected to amount to more than a handful of employees, the result is that smaller nursing and library staffs will have to handle larger numbers of students, Supt. Tom Giugni said.

The language problem is not the only hurdle accompanying the growing student population. Somehow, the district will have to find places for 3,500 more pupils. This summer, the district finished converting its junior high school metal shops into classrooms, creating space for 250 students. The district also will add 13 new portable classrooms, each of which can accommodate about 30 students.

In some schools, the district may increase classes to the maximum levels allowed in the current teacher contract. Those caps are 32 students in kindergarten, 30 for grades 1 to 3, and 35 for grades 4 to 6. Maximum class sizes in middle and high school vary according to the subject. For English classes the maximum is 35 students per class. A music or physical education class can hold up to 54 students, said Jim Deaton, president of the Teachers Assn. of Long Beach.

Some schools will hold classes in spaces other than classrooms, such as rooms once used by resource teachers, Supt. Giugni said. “I don’t know how else these principals are going to do it,” he said.

The problems of class space and class size are bound to make teaching more difficult, Deaton said. Even before this year, instructors had to make occasional use of auditoriums, lunchrooms and hallways to give their lessons, he said.

Some of the space was created when the district switched, over the last two years, from a junior high school to a middle school system. A middle school setup shifts the 6th grade from elementary school to a middle school and moves the 9th grade to high school. The effect is to create more room by removing a grade from the elementary schools, where enrollment has increased most.

The solution will no longer work, however, when the elementary bulge of students gets older. By then, the district hopes to have long-term solutions in place.

The district is currently erecting two new elementary schools and a science building at each high school. Moreover, all elementary and middle schools will change to a year-round schedule by July 1, 1994. Nine elementary schools are on such a schedule already, including two converted this month.

The previous record for enrollment was 74,564 students in 1963. In those days, such an enrollment did not create the same strain, Giugni said. High school students must now take more courses because of stiffer graduation requirements. Current laws also require more space for special education programs. And in 1963, the district had 400 classroom bungalows. They were later demolished because enrollment declined steadily for more than a decade and the aging buildings seemed unneeded.

District officials say the worst of the crunch is the need for more bilingual teachers, counselors, secretaries and administrators.

Enrollment in Long Beach Unified Schools

Year Number of Students 1991 *75,345 1990 71,454 1989 68,536 1988 67,106 1987 66,263 1986 65,079 1979 **55,263 1963 ***74,564

* Projected enrollment, an all-time high.

** Lowest level before enrollment began a steady increase.

*** Previous high for enrollment.

Source: Long Beach Unified School District