Inglewood Plans Middle Schools to Ease Overcrowding : Education: Angry parents say they prefer neighborhood facilities, that the transition time is too brief and that there aren’t enough details about the curriculum.

A plan by the Inglewood school board to establish a districtwide system of middle schools, defended by officials as a way to curb overcrowding, has touched off a storm of controversy among angry parents.

Hundreds of parents are expected to go before the Inglewood Unified School District board next Wednesday to complain about the proposal, which would eliminate sixth-grade classes at many elementary schools as early as next fall.

By the fall of 1993, all sixth-, seventh- and eighth-graders would attend one of four middle schools in the district. There would be 11 elementary schools with kindergarten to fifth grade only.

Currently, some elementary schools have kindergarten through sixth grade, while others are kindergarten through eighth grade. The district also has two junior high schools, Crozier and Monroe, which serve only seventh- and eighth-graders.

The administration argues that a middle school program is essential to alleviate severe overcrowding, mostly at the elementary level, because of population growth in the center of the city.

In trying to change the attendance patterns, district officials have found that many parents strongly prefer their neighborhood schools. Other parents complain that the district did not provide enough time to implement an orderly transition, while still others say the administration is promising an enriched curriculum in the new middle schools but has not provided any details.

At least one board member, Lois Hill Hale, said she will vote against the plan, if it comes up for a vote Wednesday. The trustee said she wants more details about the curriculum and the funding for a middle school program. She also said she favors a pilot program at one school first, so the district can learn how best to create good middle schools.

Shirley McNeal, the district’s director of elementary education, said the elementary schools that suffer the worst crowding are Oak Street, Payne, Highland, Hudnall and Kelso. Crozier Junior High School is also crowded, she said.

The administration also argues that the middle school plan will provide an improved educational program for sixth-, seventh- and eighth-graders. Too many students, especially in the junior high schools, are falling into the ranks of low achievers because of crowding and other problems, McNeal said.

The district’s junior high schools, she said, are designed on a high school model in which students change classes and teachers as many as six times a day. With the middle school plan, she said, students would be on a modular schedule, in which they would be taught by a small team of teachers. McNeal said this would serve as a smoother transition to high school.

Parents jammed the boardroom to voice their objections this week, when the middle school proposal was first presented to the board.

Many were from the Frank D. Parent Elementary School, which serves the more affluent area of Ladera Heights. Marie Stricklin, Parent School principal, said parents do not oppose middle schools but want the district to go slow on implementation.

“They just want a smooth transition,” she said.

Richard Townsend, who was chairman of a Parent school parents’ committee formed to provide input on the middle school concept, agreed.

“Everybody has kind of made up their minds that the school is going to have to take more kids,” Townsend said. “But they just want to do it in an orderly and responsible fashion to keep the (test) scores high and keep up the educational programs.”

Under the proposal, Parent School, which has kindergarten through eighth grade, would have to take sixth-graders from Highland Elementary school next year. Highland would then have kindergarten through fifth grade.

Then, in the fall of 1993, Parent would have kindergarten through fifth grade. It’s sixth-, seventh- and eighth-graders would go to one of the newly created middle schools, in this case La Tijera.

If the school board adopts the middle school plan, the district would eventually have four middle schools--La Tijera, Lane, Crozier and Monroe.