Santa Clarita / Antelope Valley : 3.2% in Hart District Choose New Schools

One in every 31 students attending high school or junior high here this fall has chosen to go to a different campus under the state’s new open enrollment plan.

About 355 of the 11,000 students enrolled at William S. Hart Union High School District’s eight campuses have asked to go to different schools. The district includes all of Santa Clarita’s public high schools and junior high schools.

California open enrollment allows students to attend any campus in a public school district they want. The program begins with the 1994-95 school year and coincides with Hart district officials redrawing their attendance boundaries.

Other students will attend new campuses because the district has redrawn its attendance boundaries with the opening of Valencia High School in Valencia and La Mesa Junior High School in Canyon Country. Only students in the lower grades will attend the new schools in September--seventh-graders at the junior high and ninth- and 10th-graders at the high school.

More students asked to switch campuses--about 3.2% of the population--than school officials had predicted.

Some students who would not have attended new schools this fall because of the change in the district’s attendance boundaries elected to switch under open enrollment. Others who would have attended a different school because of the boundary change elected to stay where they were because the school was closer to home.

The number of students who decided to switch campuses is “probably a little higher than other places that are implementing school choice for the first time, although I consider it low overall,” Supt. Walt Swanson said.

All of the transfers--288 high school students and 67 junior high students--have been accommodated, school officials said.

An additional 92 students who would have attended a more distant school because of the boundary change have elected to transfer back to their old campus. School officials gave these students priority in choosing schools over those taking advantage of the open enrollment plan. Although changing school attendance boundaries is invariably controversial, some parental concerns were eased with open enrollment available as an extra option.

The Hart district planned to conduct a lottery if too many students had asked to transfer. More coverage of the Santa Clarita and Antelope valleys appears on B12, 13.