Inglewood School Plan Could Prove Controversial : Education: Latest proposal includes a switch to middle schools, but would exempt children from three elementary campuses in well-to-do neighborhoods. It also revives a year-round class schedule.

After failing last year to approve a similar plan to ease overcrowded classrooms, Inglewood Unified School District board members are faced with a new middle- and year-round school plan that could prove as controversial as the first.

Under the latest proposal--now the subject of public hearings--students in three of the city’s most well-to-do neighborhoods would not have to attend middle schools in the central part of the city.

It was angry parents from those schools who last year packed board meetings and demanded that a proposed middle school and year-round plan be dropped. Some parents said openly at the time that they would put their children in private schools rather than have them attend middle schools outside their neighborhoods.

The three exempted elementary schools, all of which are kindergarten through eighth grade, are La Tijera, Warren Lane and Frank D. Parent.

Students in the district’s 10 other elementary schools, all of which are kindergarten through sixth grade, would go to middle schools for sixth, seventh and eighth grades.

The plan also calls for all elementary and middle schools to go on year-round schedules. Currently, only some elementary schools in the most crowded parts of the city are year-round. School districts that adopt year-round schedules get extra funds from the state.

“I don’t think there is any question that this district is going to go year-round for kindergarten though eighth grade,” school board President Thomasina Reed said.

Reed acknowledged that the middle school portion of the plan is the most controversial, adding that she has not decided whether to support it. Her decision, she said, will depend in part on what transpires in two upcoming public hearings. One hearing took place last week, but Reed said only a few parents attended.

Reed said that before the school board agrees to any middle school plan, it will demand more information from Supt. George J. McKenna.

“There’s always a concern about whether we can do it properly, whether we can afford the costs associated with it,” Reed said. “And that’s one of the things that he has to explain.”

The most crowded schools are in an area of Inglewood known as the central corridor, which in recent years has experienced an influx of Latino immigrants and sharp growth in the number of high-density apartments.

District enrollment has risen from 14,215 students 10 years ago to 16,587 last year. The district estimates enrollment will reach 20,575 by the 1996-97 school year.

What is more, the racial makeup of the district, like that of all Los Angeles County, has changed dramatically during the same decade.

Latino students now outnumber blacks in the district 50% to 48%. A decade ago, Latino students made up only 24% of the enrollment while blacks accounted for 71%.

The most crowded schools in the district also are the ones with largely Latino students, many of whom do not speak English well. The district has been struggling to recruit more Spanish-speaking teachers.

Another issue the board will have to consider if it adopts the new middle school plan, Reed said, is racial integration. The three campuses that would be exempt from the middle school concept under the latest proposal are largely black.

Although few district officials will discuss the subject openly, one of the stumbling blocks to any middle school plan is Monroe Junior High School, which would become a middle school along with Crozier Junior High.

Monroe is one of the few uncrowded schools in the district. It is on the southeast side of the Inglewood, which is plagued with poverty and high crime rates. Many parents have said they do not want their children there.

The two public hearings will be held at 6:30 p.m. Thursday at Crozier Junior High School and 6:30 p.m. Jan. 20 at La Tijera Elementary School.