Parents Split on Year-Round Issue : Newhall: Opponents want to block multitrack schooling by placing it before voters next June.

They sat in rival camps, flanking the center aisle--”the bride side and the groom side,” someone put it sarcastically.

But this gathering in Newhall seemed more like divorce court because few, if any, community issues are more combustible than the one that brought more than 100 parents on a recent night to Peachland School’s multipurpose room: creating year-round schools to ease severe overcrowding.

Meet Linnie Simmons, a parent who opposes the Newhall School District’s plan to implement multitrack, year-round classes starting next July at two of its six elementary schools--Wiley Canyon, which her son attends, and Valencia Valley. Enrollment at each now exceeds 900 pupils on campuses built to accommodate 600.

“When you’re a child, you’re a child for a very short time--and summer is very important,” Simmons told the crowd and administrators Tuesday night at a meeting of the district’s governing board.

“I don’t want to have to tell my child he has to stay in because he has to go to school the next day. I don’t want to tell him that he has to do a book report while everybody else is going to the beach.”

Now meet Susan Neiberger, another concerned parent, who favors multitrack scheduling.

“Portable classrooms do not address the need for our children to have space--space to learn and play and grow,” she told the crowd. “Our children are often tested for visual and hearing screening in a custodial closet--and they’re often tested educationally in hallways with other groups of children passing by on their way to recess . . .

“I agree that we need a bond measure, but we need a solution now .”

It’s not that Newhall district officials haven’t tried. A school construction bond measure they put before voters in 1991 narrowly failed to win the required two-thirds majority approval.

Officials say they expect to receive about $7 million to help pay for an elementary school in the sprawling Stevenson Ranch housing development west of the Golden State Freeway.

But they contend that the problem of overcrowding is so critical now that year-round scheduling is imperative.

Under the Newhall multitrack plan, calendars are staggered so that four groups of pupils attend classes for 60 school days, then vacation for 20 school days at a time at periods throughout the year. Parents choose their child’s track--many already opting for two that assure them of July or August vacations--and those who indicate no preference are assigned one.

Year-round education--whose formal acronym (MTYRE) seems as unwieldy as the problems it’s aimed at resolving--has become such a volatile issue that opponents hope to block it by placing it before Newhall voters next June.

Organizers of a petition drive say they have gathered 6,023 signatures toward their goal of at least 6,870 by Dec. 10 to put the issue to a vote.

No one disputes that Newhall’s parents want better schools, because the Santa Clarita Valley’s reputation for quality public schools is, after all, what attracted many of them to pack up and leave metropolitan Los Angeles.

What divides these parents so sharply is change--how they and the district (which grows at 5%, or 250 pupils a year) try to cope with it, especially in a crippled economy and in a state where budget shortfalls have forced officials to make cuts by wielding meat-axes instead of scalpels.

“People don’t like multitrack, year-round, but it’s inevitable everywhere, I think, because the state can’t generate enough money,” said J. Michael McGrath, Newhall’s district superintendent.

Multitrack scheduling is desperately needed now, McGrath said, because the district can’t build new schools fast enough to keep up with growth. “We’re in line for some state money down the road,” he said, “but by the time a new school can be built for, say, $10 million, it’s at least 14 months later--and then we’re really looking into 1995.”

Although Newhall’s proposed multitrack, year-round scheduling isn’t expected to diminish the district’s average classroom size of 30 pupils, McGrath said, “it will buy us space because it can increase a school’s capacity by 30%.”

In two other Santa Clarita Valley districts, overcrowding isn’t quite the problem that it is in Newhall, but officials nonetheless have implemented scaled-down versions of year-round classes.

The Saugus Union Elementary School District, for example, offers parents a choice--the traditional calendar or, at some schools, a “four-vacation” year-round plan where all pupils share the same calendar.

Officials hope to add two schools, bringing the district’s total to 12--but to build both, the district will need two-thirds majority voter approval of a $10-million bond measure in June. “If it passes,” Supt. Troy Bramlett said, “we could go as long as five to 10 years before we’d have to consider going on multitrack.”

The Sulphur Springs Union School District, which consists of seven schools, implemented multitrack at Pinetree School last year to help accommodate the district’s annual growth rate of 8%, Supt. Robert Nolet said.

“Most of our parents are very pleased with it,” he said, “and, with shorter vacations, the students’ retention is better. They don’t have to take so much time reviewing and going over rules again.”

In Newhall, meanwhile, opponents question those who say multitrack, year-round scheduling enhances learning. They worry that more frequent reshuffling of classrooms and teachers will cause more disruption and disorientation among pupils.

“Who knows how long our children will be distracted as their little eyes scan the room to take in their new surroundings?” said Barbara Shaner, a Wiley Canyon parent. “Each child will have no class to call his own. Children need to feel secure.”

A Valencia Valley parent, Rick Newton, said he fears a major impediment to learning when the Santa Clarita Valley fills up with July and August heat.

“If we were in Camarillo or Palos Verdes, it would be fine--I wouldn’t be against this idea,” he said, referring to cooler, oceanfront communities. “But we’ve got 120-degree weather in the middle of summer. After fighting long and hard for a year, we’ve now got four drinking fountains on our campus. We need about six more.”

Even in the heat of their own controversy, parents and district officials say they intend to explore putting a possible $10-million school construction bond issue before the voters--tying it to a condition that if it passes by two-thirds, there would be no multitrack.

Many parents opposed to multitrack seemed to like the idea, but McGrath cautioned that it contains potential land mines.

“The downside is that you would have multitrack on the ballot, requiring a simple majority, and you’ve got the bond issue, requiring two-thirds,” McGrath said. “Someone could say, ‘Well, I’ll vote against multitrack because I can vote for the bonds.’ And then multitrack . . . loses and so do the bonds.”

For all of multitrack’s apparent logistic dilemmas, proponents contend it’s better than other immediate alternatives such as double sessions or additional portable classrooms that would eat up more playground space.

“Change can be tough,” Monique Newman, a Wiley Canyon parent and a special education assistant for Los Angeles public schools, told parents and administrators at the meeting, “but this is one change that I have not been afraid of--for myself or my children.”

Even so, Newman conceded that change to multitrack also is a tough sell--within her own family.

“After I explained the positive aspects of multitrack to my 7-year-old,” she said, “I asked him what he thought of it. He said, ‘Mom, I think it’s stinky.’ ”

She smiled and added: “So we’re going to have to talk a little bit further.”