L.A. Schools to Hold Lotteries for Open Spots : Education: Waiting lists are likely at campuses where applications by students from other neighborhoods exceed available spaces or threaten ethnic and racial balance.

Los Angeles schools with too many open enrollment applications and not enough space geared up to hold lotteries today to determine which students will be allowed to attend the campuses of their choice this fall.

The Los Angeles Unified School District schools--many in the west San Fernando Valley--will randomly draw students’ names and create waiting lists for potential openings under the new state-ordered open enrollment program. For the first time, students will be allowed to transfer to schools outside their neighborhoods if space is available and the campuses’ ethnic/racial balances will not substantially change.

School district officials did not have the total number of lotteries or the numbers of applications for individual schools Monday. But officials said the number of applicants may not reflect how many students will enroll at a school because some families applied at different campuses.

“Because we know that parents are shopping and applying at more than one school, we won’t get a real handle on this until they actually enroll in September,” said Bruce Takeguma, a specialist in the district office that is coordinating the program. “It’s real hard to say now because the numbers are artificially high.”

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Nonetheless, school administrators and attendance clerks counted applications, set up lottery schedules and analyzed racial balances Monday, the application deadline. Up to 22,000 spaces were up for grabs.

An informal survey of schools across the district showed that students primarily are applying to campuses near their homes, and that applications were not as numerous as some administrators expected.

However, there have been more applications from students now attending private schools than expected.

Overall, administrators said they believe that many parents were reluctant to send their children to distant schools. “I really think it’s a question of convenience rather than academics,” said Barbara Garry, assistant principal at San Fernando High. “There are very few students who are going to drive across the Valley to a Taft or El Camino.”

To be sure, high schools such as Taft and El Camino received large numbers of applications--Taft got 459 and El Camino got 200--but those came predominantly from students who live in the West Valley. Taft had space for 600, and El Camino had space for just 100.

Because the district did not guarantee bus transportation, officials said students might have been deterred from applying.

At Marshall High in Los Feliz, which received about 200 applications for 300 openings, most of the students live in the neighboring Belmont High or Hollywood High attendance areas, officials said.

At Welby Way Elementary in West Hills, which got about 120 applications for 15 slots, officials said many of the students live just outside the school boundaries or have siblings in the magnet center located on the campus.

Adrienne Serviss, who lives in West Hills and wants her first-grade son to attend Welby Way rather than her local Nevada Street Elementary, said she believes that the open enrollment policy is ideal for parents who do not want their children to travel long distances to school. “People are probably just shopping for the best school in their area,” she said.

The open enrollment period began in May, setting off a flurry of activity by schools seeking to attract students. Grant High School teachers took out a newspaper ad and dozens of other schools produced short videos that aired on the district’s television channel.

Howard Lappin, principal of Foshay Middle School in South-Central Los Angeles, said he received about 140 applications for 175 slots mainly because of his advertisements and through word of mouth in the community.

“The response is really gratifying,” Lappin said. “We do a lot of work in the community and I’m real pleased.”

Some campuses, such as Grant, have sufficient space but will hold lotteries to ensure that the student body meets district integration guidelines. Grant received 160 applications and has space for 300.

“The bottom line is the integration guidelines have to be followed,” said Takeguma. “We have to make sure we don’t swing it one way ethnically.”

The majority of students appear to be applying for the lowest grade levels at the schools: kindergarten or first grade at the elementary schools, sixth or seventh grade at the middle schools, and ninth or 10th grade at the high schools.

“Generally, people are more interested in establishing their children in a new school in the early grades,” said Diana Lorenz, the principal at Mt. Washington Elementary, which will hold a lottery. The school received 60 applications for 15 spaces.

Some administrators said the new program did not generate the kind of large-scale attendance shifts that they expected. “I expected a lot of applicants,” said Norma Danyo, the assistant principal at Garfield High, which received 51 applications for 150 openings. “It’s too bad--they’re not as high as we would expect. During the year, we get a lot of inquiries about our school.”

School Lotteries

Today is lottery day at Los Angeles Unified School District campuses that have more requests than space for open enrollment.

* In a public session at each school, a committee of three will select applicants’ names from a box. The principal will be responsible for supervising the drawing procedures and for selecting the committee.

* After the number of applicants necessary to fill the openings have been selected, the remaining names will be drawn and placed on a waiting list.

* When one sibling’s name is drawn and accepted, other siblings also will be allowed to attend the school. The number of open enrollment slots will be increased to allow for siblings.

* Parents should check with the schools to find out whether lotteries will be held and at what time. All are scheduled for today.