Antelope Valley’s High Schools Face the New Year With Old Problems

The Antelope Valley’s troubled high school district is starting the new year with a lot of new faces confronting familiar old problems that are fallout from last year’s $12-million budget shortfall, an ousted superintendent and about 170 eliminated jobs.

Supt. Robert Girolamo, who arrived in May from a small Northern California school district, will head a revamped administration that includes new principals at three of the six campuses in the sprawling, 12,832-student Antelope Valley Union High School District.

But the array of challenges facing district officials and the schools promises to be much the same as last year: crowded classrooms, this year averaging 45 students because of the teacher cutbacks; a thinned and weary work force; increasing student crime and vandalism, and little money to spare.

Much of the district’s plight can be blamed on several years of financial mismanagement that erupted into public view early in 1992 with the budget shortfall. That led the school board to oust former Supt. Kenneth Brummel in August, 1992, and cut jobs to save money.

To avoid insolvency, the district had to borrow $8 million from Los Angeles County in mid-1992, then managed to pay back half that amount by the end of the school year last spring. But the remaining $4 million and about $500,000 in interest is due this school year, meaning that spending will continue to be austere.

Girolamo, stressing that the worst is over, says students and staff members can at least look forward with hope to better times in the 1994-95 school year.

“I’m hearing people say, ‘I can put up with it for this year. At least I know the light at the end of the tunnel is not a train coming at me,’ ” he said.

But at the district’s Board of Trustees meeting Wednesday night, the first since the start of classes Sept. 8, a teachers union spokesman painted a bleaker picture, calling class sizes “horrendous” and security “a great concern.” And a spokesman for classified employees said they are being worn “pretty thin.”

Here is a briefing on the district as it heads into the new school year:

* Administration: Girolamo, who arrived in May with an $89,000 salary and a four-year contract, is not the only newcomer. None of the three district assistant superintendents who began a year ago remain.

Con Oamek was hired for the vacant business job last fall. Former Quartz Hill High School Principal Ray Monti replaced the departing Robert Sanchez in the education job several months ago. And the school board Wednesday decided to reopen the search for the personnel job left by Michael Rossi.

At the principal level, in a series of internal reassignments, John Hutak has replaced Ralph Vandro at Antelope Valley High School, Jay Clark has replaced Dale Johnson at Highland High School, and Susan Custer has taken over Monti’s job.

* Politics: Three of the school board’s five seats are up for grabs in the Nov. 2 election. The contest has drawn 14 candidates, the largest number in years for a district election, in part because two of the three incumbents are not seeking reelection after the financial turmoil.

School board President Steve Landaker, frustrated at the difficulty in achieving reform, is calling it quits. Sophia Waugh, whose home in Agua Dulce was shifted into a newly created local school district, is not running either. Only incumbent Charles Whiteside, a college administrator, is trying again.

* Enrollment: The continuing slump in the region’s economy has slowed the district’s previously relentless growth in student enrollment. As of last week, total enrollment was 12,832 students, up a scant 1.4% over the 12,656 figure for the comparable period last year.

That current student enrollment is several hundred less than assumed in the district’s $55-million budget for the year. If those numbers hold, the district would again face running short of money. But district officials expect enrollment to rise in coming weeks.

* Reputation: A year and a half ago, county education officials intervened in the district’s financial mess, using a new state law to appoint their first-ever fiscal adviser to oversee a local district. Adviser Norm Miller continues to work three days a week at the $500-a-day job.

Antelope Valley is one of only three public school districts among more than 80 in the county to have such a fiscal adviser. The other two are the Centinela Valley Union High School District in the Lawndale area and Inglewood Unified. Only Compton Unified is in worse shape, with a state-appointed administrator.

Officials in the Los Angeles County Office of Education said they expect the Antelope Valley district to remain under county supervision throughout the school year until the county loan is repaid, although Miller’s time spent there could be reduced or his tenure phased out before then.

* Charter school: Teachers at the district’s Highland High School in west Palmdale plan to formally petition the school board for charter school status Oct. 13. They began that process months ago, but delayed because district officials had no time to deal with anything but fiscal repair work.

Teachers want to take advantage of a 1992 state law that permits the creation of 100 charter schools entitled to set many of their own policies. Upon receiving such a petition, the board is required to rule on it within 60 days.

The petition would be the first of its kind in the Antelope Valley district and one of a relatively small number in the county. But questions of how to fund charter schools remain unresolved.

* Vouchers: As if the district didn’t already have enough home-grown problems, state Proposition 174--the parental choice or school vouchers initiative also on the Nov. 2 ballot--is already causing friction.

The school board voted last month, with Billy Pricer abstaining, to oppose it.

Then Wednesday night, teachers union spokesman Jim Gardner vowed that his group would oppose any school board candidate who supports the measure, and board member Waugh also publicly denounced it. But they in turn were denounced by school board candidate Sue Stokka, one of several who supports the measure.

* On the horizon: Look for the school board to consider a plan to buy the vacant Johnson Ford dealership in Lancaster with city help, pursue selling property at Palmdale High School and explore double lunches to cut by half the number of students roaming during the lunch break.