COVER STORY : The Wheels...

JOLTED OUT OF BED BEfore dawn, they arrive at street corners as early as 6 with notebooks in hand and backpacks slumped over their shoulders.

In darkness, rain or sunlight, tens of thousands of students--some barely old enough to tie their own shoes--wait for buses that will transport them from their inner-city neighborhoods to schools in the San Fernando Valley or on the Westside.

Some who climb aboard the bright-yellow fleet believe suburban schools will offer them a better education and are taking advantage of voluntary integration programs. Some have no choice but to ride across town because their neighborhood schools are filled to capacity. And others are being sent to new campuses for disciplinary or academic reasons.

Regardless, cross-town busing is a way of life for at least 26,000 students in the Los Angeles Unified School District, who travel from such communities as South-Central, Boyle Heights and Koreatown to suburban areas such as Woodland Hills, Brentwood and Tujunga.

“I’ve changed a lot since I started coming here,” said Nancy Vasquez, a junior at Woodland Hills’ El Camino Real High School who rides the bus from South-Central. “Before, I was failing all my classes; now I’m on the student council. It’s hard, though. The bused kids have to go an extra mile because we’re trying to rise above.”

The predominantly black, Latino and Asian students who make the daily cross-town haul have helped diversify Valley and Westside schools and enabled many suburban campuses faced with declining local enrollments to stay open.

But the district’s $39-million busing programs also are bitterly resented by many Valley and Westside residents, who blame inner-city students for the violence, graffiti and low test scores besetting their neighborhood schools.

“My family feels they should stay at their own schools because they feel they bring trouble,” said Hollyn Nemecek, a freshman at El Camino Real. “I don’t even bother trying to be friends with them. I feel more comfortable with kids from around here because I couldn’t even go down to their inner-city neighborhoods without being afraid of being shot.”

Busing to the suburbs began in the late 1960s, when the school district launched a controversial voluntary busing program to integrate Los Angeles schools. About 9,700 students from predominantly minority areas, including the east Valley, are now bused to Valley and Westside schools as part of various voluntary integration programs. About 1,300 of those students are at the elementary level.

An additional 16,000 students--including 7,600 elementary school children--are forced to travel to other campuses because their neighborhood schools in areas such as Pico-Union, Bell and Huntington Park are overcrowded.

Thousands of magnet and special education students also ride the bus, while regular permits are given to other students who find their own transportation to schools outside their neighborhoods.

In recent years, the number of bused students has declined as the district’s total enrollment has dropped and new schools have been built in areas that were overcrowded. Three years ago, for instance, more than 38,000 students were bused for integration and overcrowding reasons.

But cross-town busing is still a ubiquitous part of the 640,000-student school district, essentially blurring racial distinctions between suburban and inner-city schools.

“What’s happening is that kids are going everywhere and schools are becoming more and more alike,” said Brenda Morton, an assistant principal at University High School in West Los Angeles, where more than half of the school’s 2,250 students live outside the area.

Rising before dawn and riding the bus up to three hours a day is a grueling sacrifice many students are willing to make because, they say, suburban schools are safer and academically more challenging than those in their own neighborhoods.

Katherine Custodio, an 18-year-old honor student at Tujunga’s Verdugo Hills High School, wakes up at 4:30 to get ready for school. After showering and dressing at her two-bedroom apartment near Hollywood, her brother drives her four blocks to her bus stop. By 6:45, she is heading toward school.

On a recent morning, Katherine read William Faulkner’s “A Light in August” during the 45-minute drive to school. She sat alone, while others slept, listened to music on portable stereos or talked loudly among their friends.

“Compared to the neighborhoods over here, it’s like ‘Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood’ up there,” she said. “Sometimes, I’m tempted not to go to school in the mornings, but I’ve never missed the bus because I know I have a responsibility to go. I have a better opportunity to learn.”

Although Katherine’s mother, Agnes Anciano, worries that her daughter isn’t getting enough sleep, she is grateful for the district’s busing program. “It’s a big help to single parents like me because I don’t drive and I’ve been laid off since August,” she said. “Katherine would otherwise go to Belmont (High School), and the area around there is really rough.”

But Anciano, who has never seen Verdugo Hills High, can’t help but worry about her daughter’s long daily trek.

“Sometimes, she leaves the house when it’s still dark,” she said. “And one time, there was a problem on the bus and she didn’t come home until 5 o’clock. I called one of her classmates and she said, ‘Katherine left school at 3 p.m.’ I was so worried, I sent my son looking for her.”

Although students such as Katherine stoically accept their rigorous daily routines, cross-town busing has taken its toll on others. Absences are frequent among students who ride the bus, and teachers say many of them appear sluggish and tired in class. Traveling students also have difficulty participating in extracurricular activities.

“I used to play basketball, but I had to quit because I got home too late,” said Garth Lawrence, a senior at El Camino Real who lives in the Koreatown area. “I wouldn’t get home until 8 o’clock. It was too much of a time commitment.”

Some bused students also feel out of place at suburban schools and long to return to their neighborhood schools and friends.

As a freshman, Miguel Barajas was sent to Verdugo Hills High School because Bell High School was overcrowded. Three years have passed, and the 17-year-old still resents having to wake up at 5:30 every morning for school.

“I’m upset about it,” he said. “If I went to Bell, I would have more time to spend with my family and I would probably play sports. . . . I have friends here but they live all over the place. It’s like we say ‘Hi’ when we come to school and then ‘Bye’ at the end of the day.”

Barajas also dislikes the racial tensions brewing at school. During lunch, for instance, Barajas said students hang out together almost exclusively by race.

“It’s like white dudes against the brown dudes,” he said. “Some of the skinheads pick fights with us because they don’t want us over here.”

Verdugo Hills Principal Gary Turner said racially motivated fights have broken out this year between bused students and the mostly white local students. About 70% of the school’s 1,800 students are minorities, and about 60% of the school’s student body is bused.

“We’ve had really good race relations in the past, but this year we’ve had more problems,” Turner said. “For the most part, our bused-in kids have been very well-accepted here at school, but there are always going to be those who don’t like the busing in of minority students.”

But Turner said many local residents don’t realize that the school is dependent on its traveling student population to stay open: “You need about 1,800 students to make up a high school. When you fall below that, you’re in big trouble.”

Still, many Westside and Valley residents would like nothing more than to see the bused students return to schools in their own neighborhoods.

The February, 1993, fatal shooting of Reseda High School student Michael Shean Ensley fueled such angry sentiments. The 17-year-old came to Reseda by bus from South Los Angeles, while his attacker, Robert Heard, 15, took the bus from Panorama City. Both had been attending Reseda on an opportunity transfer, which is designed to move students with discipline and academic problems to different schools.

“I don’t mind the students being bused in because it doesn’t really make a difference to me,” said Negin Brokhim, a junior at University High School who lives near the school. “But sometimes, I see people getting busted for drugs or something and then I see them getting on the bus after school. That’s when I think that they shouldn’t have busing.”

There is a also a feeling among some Westside and Valley educators that overcrowded schools are holding on to their most talented students. Although overcrowded schools generally enroll students on a first-come, first-served basis, they often make exceptions for students they want to keep.

“If a school is going to pull out kids, they won’t send us their most academic kids,” said Gerald Citrin, an art teacher at University High School. “The bused kids here are very streetwise and nice, but a lot of them have learning and disciplinary problems. And because some come from such long distances, they’re worn out by the time they come to school.”

Bused students at Verdugo Hills, however, tend to perform about the same academically as local students and get into trouble less often than local students, Turner said.

“People think that bused people all bring weapons to school and cause trouble,” said Yesenia Carriera, a sophomore at Verdugo Hills High who lives near Belmont High. “I feel bad about it because I choose to come here and I want to come to a school where I feel welcome.”

But Damian-Jason Young, a senior at University High who is bused from West Adams, said many bused students do cause trouble at school, which spoils the reputation of all traveling students.

“I don’t blame people for thinking bused students cause trouble because some kids who are bused don’t take pride in our school,” he said. “They trash the school and cause trouble because they know they’ll just leave after school. But that’s not like me. I take a lot of pride in my school.”

Busing, in some ways, has destroyed the idea of neighborhood schools, Citrin said. “Many kids are here for the day, and then they go home to their environments.”

Schools with large numbers of bused students also struggle to involve parents in school activities.

“If we have an open house event from 7 to 9 p.m., the buses have to pick up the parents about 4:30,” said Michael B. Bennett, principal of Woodland Hills Parkman Middle School. “You’re not going to get a lot of people who can leave work that early or take the time needed to come up here for events.”

To help bridge the gap between the school and its bused population, the entire staff at Parkman recently traveled to South-Central’s Carver Middle School to meet the parents of traveling students.

“We took everybody, including our classified workers, janitors and secretaries,” said Bennett, who plans to make the visit an annual event. “We had over 100 parents waiting for us at Carver and they were overwhelmed that we all came down there.”

Along with reaching out to parents, Orlando Martinez-Miller, principal at Encino Elementary, believes it’s essential for schools to make bused students feel welcome.

“We treat them well when they come here,” he said of the school’s 325 bused students. “I tell them that they’re not visitors, and that they’re part of the school. . . . Soon enough, they feel coming over here for school is normal. It’s just part of life.”