GLENDALE : Board OKs Study of Evening High School

The Glendale Board of Education has taken a step toward creating an evening high school on the Hoover High School campus.

On Tuesday, the board voted to set up two committees to study the idea, designed to alleviate overcrowding among the city’s three secondary schools. As envisioned, the school would offer classes from 2:15 to 9 p.m. in addition to classes from 7:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m.

Last fall, the board voted to consider the creation of a night school along with several other options to reduce overcrowding.

The two committees, the Evening School Planning Task Force and the Career Academy Task Force, will have 37 and 33 members, respectively, including parents, community representatives, students, teachers, principals and staff.

The Evening School Planning Task Force will make recommendations on curriculum, extracurricular activities, scheduling, staffing, hours of operation and student recruitment strategies, according to a report by Jim Gibson, secondary education administrator.

The Career Academy Task Force will study whether an evening school should emphasize specialized areas such as retail sales, entertainment, publishing, and business, or if it should stick to a traditional curriculum, the report said. Both committees are scheduled to report to the board in June.

To implement the evening school proposal, officials face the difficult task of convincing a portion of the district’s 7,111 high school students that they should attend school from 2:15 p.m. to 9 p.m. rather than the traditional hours of 7:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m., said Vic Pallos, district spokesman.

“It may be difficult to recruit kids to attend school at night,” Pallos said. “We’re going to have to come up with an attractive package to get kids to go.”

Initially, the evening school would offer classes for 350 students. Administrators hope that 700 students in grades nine through 12 will volunteer to attend evening school classes within three years.

The board studied other options to relieve overcrowding, including year-round schooling, building a new high school, boundary changes and open enrollment, which allows students to choose to attend a school other than the one in their neighborhood.

Of these recommendations, board members voted to table open enrollment and new school construction. To help with overcrowding in the short term, three portable classrooms will be added at Glendale High School for the 1994-1995 school year.

Year-round schooling is not a feasible option at the high school level because of sports and advanced placement class schedules, Pallos said.