District Bites Overcrowding Bullet : Education: Remaining Anaheim City schools will go to year-round schedule. District could go $10 million in red.

The Anaheim City School District on Tuesday adopted a plan that should alleviate its overcrowding crisis but will place all of its schools on a year-round schedule and could leave it $10 million in debt.

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The plan adopted by the Board of Education calls for the district to fund the construction of five so-called “instant” schools at a cost of $2 million apiece and put the last eight of the district’s 21 schools on a year-round calendar.

To create more classroom space, the plan also calls for eliminating next June the district’s three after-school day-care programs. But the board rejected a plan to drastically increase class sizes.

The administration said the measures are necessary because the 17,000-student district will have no room for new students by next fall, yet it estimates continued growth at a rate of almost 1,000 students a year until 2015, when it will have 35,000 students. The district had 11,000 students seven years ago.

The increased population is not the result of new home construction, but rather younger and larger families moving into the downtown district, studies show.

“It’s been very strenuous on everyone to have to make these decisions, which impact everyone--employees, parents and especially children,” said board President Lou Lopez.

In its original report, the district said it wanted to build five new schools at $15 million apiece. But Supt. Meliton Lopez said that because it is unlikely the district will receive any money from the state’s school construction fund, it will opt for the instant schools, trailers put on playgrounds. All of these would be running within five years.

The instant schools will have their own names, principals and staffs, but would share the existing schools’ playgrounds.

To pay for the schools, the district is considering taking out certificates of participation, which are loans similar to home mortgages, that would have long-term consequences for the district. A final decision on the financing will be made at a future date.

“Like your home mortgage, the payments have first call on your budget,” Lopez said. “That will make for some very difficult budget decisions. You have the (employee) unions that are always seeking pay raises. Those things may no longer be possible or will have to be scaled down in the interest of educating the children.”

Wanda Roberts, president of the Anaheim Elementary Education Assn., told the board it has the teachers’ cooperation in the change to a year-round calendar, but that teachers feel the certificates of participation would be a threat to their future livelihood.

“We have no problem with (the year-round) schedule,” Roberts said. “But you are threatening our future salaries and benefits. You call that cooperation?”

The district has a budget of $70 million, which has not faced any cuts in recent years.

Dwayne Brooks, assistant superintendent of school facility planning at the California Department of Education, said Anaheim is probably right in saying state money is not forthcoming. The state has a backlog of $6 billion in school construction requests, but only has $160 million available.

The remaining eight schools on a traditional September-through-June calendar--Betsy Ross, Sunkist, Clara Barton, James M. Guinn, Benito Juarez, Loara, James Madison and Theodore Roosevelt--all will have been placed on a year-round calendar by mid-1995, Lopez said.

By going on a year-round calendar, the schools’ student capacity will be increased by 25% because they are never shut for summer vacation. Board President Lopez opposed the switch to a year-round calendar but was outvoted by the other four board members.

According to the Orange County Department of Education, eight districts have some year-round schools, with 48 of the county’s 324 elementary schools on a year-round calendar.

The day-care programs at Sunkist, Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin schools will be eliminated after June, under the plan.