PACOIMA : School Buys Parcel Adjacent to Campus

Exercising its budget autonomy in an unprecedented move, the San Fernando Valley’s first charter school concluded negotiations Monday for the purchase of an $80,000 property adjacent to its campus at 13330 Vaughn Street in Pacoima.

The Vaughn Next Century Learning Center closed escrow with the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corp. on a 7,900-square-foot property with an abandoned one-story house, making it the first school in the Los Angeles Unified School District to purchase property independently of the district.

“It’s a done deal,” said Vaughn principal Yvonne Chan.

“We will foot the bill. We will house the kids. I’m ecstatic.”

Chan said the purchase of the property is the first step toward returning the elementary school to a traditional calendar by adding classrooms to accommodate all 1,100 students at once and increasing the number of instruction days from 163 to 200.

Like other overcrowded schools in the Valley, Vaughn now operates three rotating “tracks” year-round to make space for all of its students.

The funds for the property came from savings generated by the school in its first year of operation. Chan said she hopes to have the property in use by January, 1995, either by bringing in portable classrooms or, if the necessary permits are approved in time, bulldozing the existing structure and rebuilding.

“We want to be all one track by July 1,” Chan said. “We would be the only traditional school running on 200 days a year.”

In addition to using the space for five portable classrooms on the new property, the charter school will also bring two classrooms to its existing campus.