GLENDALE CHANGES: Glendale’s steadily swelling population (above)...

GLENDALE CHANGES: Glendale’s steadily swelling population (above) brings many changes, replacing its image as mostly middle-class, white and English-speaking. Students with roots in the Middle East, particularly Armenia, now account for almost a third of public school enrollment. See Valley Briefing (B16).

IT’S BAAAAACK: With the voucher initiative crushed and the Legislature due to reconvene next month, talk of breaking up the L.A. school district is resurfacing. An Assembly subcommittee met with community activists Tuesday. State Senate leader David A. Roberti of Van Nuys, still leading the breakup charge, called the district a “totally incomprehensible . . . morass.”

SHAKE, RATTLE AND RUN: Less than a week after County Supervisor Ed Edelman announced he won’t run for reelection, L.A. City Councilman Zev Yaroslavsy says he’ll run for the job (B1). . . . “County government needs shaking up, and I intend to shake it up,” Yaroslavsky says.

RAPT IN SPACE: Valley workers who helped set up the space shuttle mission watch with pride the astronauts’ slow-motion repair ballet on live TV. Employees of Chatsworth’s Schaeffer Magnetics passed up “Monday Night Football” to watch, says VP Max Jacobson. . . . Although Schaeffer’s gizmos worked as planned, the company had to prepare new ones for the Hubble telescope repair package. Jacobson credits “a sense of pride in having a small part in” the mission.

LAST RITES: If you die with your boots on in the Valley, Leilana Aranda or one of her colleagues will take charge of what’s left of you. Street Beat (B2) features Aranda, a coroner’s investigator. . . . She’s no passionate iconoclast, like TV’s Quincy. A soft-spoken born-again Christian, she comforts grieving relatives, shielding them from grisly details.

Growing Glendale

Glendale is the third largest of 84 cities in Los Angeles County. Its population growth since 1970: 1970: 132,752 1980: 139,060 1990: 180,038 Three largest cities (as of 1990 U.S. Census): 1. Los Angeles: 3,500,000 2. Long Beach: 429,433 3. Glendale: 180,038 Source: 1990 U.S. Census