SANTA ANA : Year-Round Classes OKd for 2 Schools

To alleviate crowded classrooms and save money, the Santa Ana Unified School District has approved a plan to shift Sierra and Lathrop intermediate schools to year-round instruction beginning in July.

The two are the first intermediate schools in the district to shift to a year-round curriculum; all but one of their feeder elementary schools now use that system, district spokeswoman Diane Thomas said. More than 2,630 students will be affected by the switch.

The board decided that the change was necessary after a district report that showed enrollment at Sierra will climb 31% by the 1995-96 school year, while enrollment at Lathrop will jump 47%.

The move to year-round education at the schools will eliminate the need for portable classrooms and for busing more than 200 students a day from Lathrop and other schools, saving the district about $77,000 a year, the report said. However, the change will also require the district to hire more teachers and pay for additional storage space at a cost of $97,000.

No one spoke against the plan at the board’s regular meeting Tuesday, although several residents who live near Sierra asked for and received assurances that school officials would work to minimize traffic and parking problems on their streets.

“I can sympathize that they’ve got a lot of kids and not a lot of money to build new schools,” said McClay Street resident Debra Ringer. “If they follow through on the actions they discussed tonight, then we’ll see if they’re not just paying lip service” to working with the neighbors on traffic and other issues.

The year-round committee report also said the district’s task force on year-round education has tentative plans to study it at all of the district’s intermediate schools, including Carr, Spurgeon and Willard for the 1992-93 school year and MacArthur and McFadden for the 1993-94 school year.