Santa Clarita / Antelope Valley : Board OKs New Secondary School Boundaries in Santa Clarita : Education: The changes reflect the fall openings of Valencia High and La Mesa Junior High. Priority option will provide chance to attend closer facility.

Now that the shouting is over, about 1,200 to 1,400 incoming students will attend different junior and senior high schools beginning in September.

Capping months of controversy, William S. Hart Union High School District trustees voted unanimously Wednesday night to adopt new boundaries, reflecting the opening of Valencia High School and La Mesa Junior High School this fall.

The new plan applies to incoming seventh-, ninth- and 10th-graders, and will expand in consecutive years to cover higher grades. Current sophomores, juniors and seniors are not affected.

Dividing the district’s 11,000-plus students among four high schools and four junior highs has been controversial because new schools aren’t located so children from an elementary school or neighborhood can be shifted as a group to a nearby site.

The school districts’ limited finances mean that they cannot purchase ideal property for campuses, and must rely upon voter-approved bonds or developer agreements to secure land wherever they can.

“The two new schools are in the wrong places, basically,” Trustee Patricia Hanrion said.

Some parents have said they’d prefer their children going to a crowded neighborhood school rather than being bused to a different site. However, the district has to shift students to use the new campuses and relieve chronic crowding.

“If they never built another home, you’d need to have more capacity at the junior high and senior high because there are so many students at the elementary level,” said Lew White, district facilities director.

Earlier proposals caused some parents to blast other neighborhoods. Most notably, some Saugus parents complained about their children attending junior high school in Canyon Country.

“We are stuck with it, and what we’re trying to do is meet your desires and comply with the law,” Trustee John Hassel told a group of more than 130 parents at the board meeting. “What I’m impressed with is people have moved past the complaint stage and are trying to cure the problem.”

The newly adopted boundary plan includes “priority” options, which will allow students assigned to distant schools to have priority to transfer back to a closer campus if enrollment allows. Students not addressed under the priority system may still request a transfer under open enrollment.

The new plan calls for:

* Upper Bouquet Canyon area elementary school students--once designated to attend Sierra Vista Junior High School in Canyon Country--will attend Arroyo Seco Junior High in Saugus. When the elementary school in the Plum Canyon area opens--estimated in the fall of 1996--students in those neighborhoods would attend Sierra Vista and later Canyon High School, but will have the priority option to attend Saugus High School. Any tract homes in Plum Canyon sold after April 1 will go to Sierra Vista.

* Students now at Meadows and Old Orchard elementary schools in Valencia who live north and west of McBean Parkway and east of Rockwell Canyon Road will attend La Mesa Junior High in Canyon Country. They will have the priority option to transfer to Placerita Junior High School in Newhall. Current ninth-graders from the Meadows and Old Orchard attendance area will remain at Hart High School rather than go to Valencia High.

* Youths living near Arroyo Seco Junior High, including the Northbridge housing tract, will attend that school. Anyone moving into a new home there will attend La Mesa.

* High school students in the Bouquet Canyon area are slated to go to Valencia High, but have the priority option to remain at Saugus High.