CHATSWORTH : Private School Adds Middle Grades

A private Chatsworth elementary school has quietly begun an expansion that will eventually increase its student body by nearly half and add middle-school grades to its curriculum.

The first middle-school students started school this week at the Sierra Canyon School on Independence Avenue, the first wave of students in an expansion that will eventually add 175 youngsters to the 400 who already attend in primary grades.

Sierra Canyon’s neighbors along Independence Avenue include owners of some of the last ranch-style properties in that part of the San Fernando Valley floor. Independence Avenue itself, located a few blocks from the mini-malls and warehouses of Chatsworth, is one of the few unpaved city streets left in the Valley.

When the private school announced plans last year to build a $750,000 addition to the campus to accommodate 175 new sixth- and seventh-graders many neighboring residents hotly opposed the plan. The proposal was initially denied. But the denial was overturned when parents of Sierra Canyon students appealed to the city Board of Zoning Appeals, according to city planning documents.

The board approved the expansion over the objections of neighbors who said noise and traffic would grow worse with the larger student body.

Last week, the school began the first phases of the expansion when four portable classrooms were moved onto the basketball court to accommodate the new students, said Howard Wang, school director.

Construction of nine new classrooms will begin later this school year, and by next year, the student body will all be housed in the new classrooms, Wang said.