School Board Urged to Delay Year-Round Plan

After several raucous public hearings attended by hundreds of parents, Burbank Unified School District officials are expected to delay putting Joaquin Miller Elementary School on a year-round, multitrack schedule until summer, 1994.

District officials originally had proposed changing the schedule in time for the start of the 1993-94 school year. But Supt. Arthur N. Pierce asked the Board of Education late Thursday night to postpone a decision on year-round instruction at Miller for at least a year.

“I really appreciate the concern expressed by parents. I realize we need more time to consider this,” Pierce said.

The board did not vote on the schedule, but a majority of the five members expressed support for postponing year-round education.

“Is there a way we can buy one extra year for preparation?” board member Vivian Kaufman asked.

Although the district has studied year-round instruction for more than a year, Pierce and several board members said the district needs more time to make the transition at Miller. District officials also will have to consider other short-term options for the overcrowded school. Pierce said he would present to the board a more detailed set of options at its Nov. 19 meeting.

The school, at Providencia Avenue and Kenneth Road, is the only one in the Burbank district under consideration for a year-round schedule. It was designed in 1957 for about 400 pupils from kindergarten through sixth grade but now houses about 800 from kindergarten through fifth grade with the use of 13 portable bungalows.

In several recent public hearings, parents of Miller students and members of parent-teacher groups at other schools have expressed concern that Miller would be out of sync with the rest of the district, which would remain on a traditional schedule.

“It’s not fair to our kids when the rest of the schools are on a traditional schedule,” parent Marnie Ring-Yzbick said.

Representatives of the Burbank Council of Parent-Teacher Assns. presented to the board Thursday a letter urging the district to consider other options to relieve overcrowded conditions, such as changing school boundaries and reopening closed school sites.

District officials have said busing children to other schools is not feasible because most Miller students live a few blocks from the school. An explosive growth in apartment buildings has occurred in the northeast Burbank neighborhood during the past decade.

All the elementary schools near Miller are at or near capacity, Pierce said, and redrawing Miller’s boundaries would have a domino effect that would ultimately force most students in the city to be bused to an elementary school outside their neighborhood.

Eventually, other schools or possibly the entire district may have to convert to a year-round schedule as enrollments grow during the next 10 to 20 years, Pierce said.