Lotteries to Settle Open-Enrollment Overflow Today : Education: Applicant totals are lower than some administrators expected. Students apparently favored campuses near their homes.

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 schools--primarily in the west San Fernando Valley--will randomly draw students’ names for enrollment and create waiting lists for potential openings under the Los Angeles Unified School District’s new state-ordered open-enrollment policy. For the first time, students can transfer to schools outside their neighborhoods as long as space is available and the campuses’ ethnic balances remain intact.

School district officials did not know the total number of lotteries or the number of applications for individual schools on Monday. But officials said the number of applications will not reflect how many students will enroll at a school because many may have applied at several 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 coordinating the program. “It’s real hard to say now because the numbers are artificially high.”

Nonetheless, school administrators and attendance clerks counted applications, set up lottery schedules and analyzed racial balances on Monday, the deadline for applications.

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

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

Overall, administrators said they believe parents are reluctant to send their children to schools across the sprawling district. “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, schools such as Taft High and El Camino High, both in Woodland Hills, received large numbers of applications--Taft got 459 and El Camino 200--but those came predominantly from students who live in the West Valley. Taft, however, had space for 600 and El Camino had space for just 100.

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

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

At Welby Way Elementary School 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 that is 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 campus, Nevada Street Elementary, said she believes the open-enrollment policy is ideal for parents who don’t 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 season began in May, setting off a flurry of activity by schools seeking to attract students. Grant, in fact, took out a newspaper ad, and dozens of other schools produced short videos that aired on the school district’s television station.

Howard Lappin, the principal at 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 High School in Van Nuys, will hold lotteries simply because of concerns over racial diversity. Grant received 160 applications and has space for 300, but the school must maintain specific integration ratios.

“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.”

At some schools, the numbers of students applying and the number leaving were about the same. At Canoga Park High, for example, about 20 applied and 27 checked out.

“I keep telling the kids they’re better off in a smaller school where everyone knows them,” said Sandra Benavidez, the assistant principal, who tried to talk some students into staying. “The kids will just become numbers” at other schools.

The majority of students appear to have applied 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, principal at Mount Washington Elementary, which will be holding 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 they expected. “I expected a lot of applicants,” said Norma Danyo, the assistant principal at Garfield High School, 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.”

But many students might just be happy where they are, officials said.

“Maybe people are more content where they are than people realize,” said Eve Sherman, principal at Grant. “Schools are trying, and we’re all working really hard.”

There were more than 22,000 spaces available districtwide, and about 9,100 in the Valley.

Enrollment Lotteries: The Fine Print

Los Angeles schools that received more applications for open-enrollment transfers than there is space available will be holding lotteries today.

The Los Angeles Unified School District’s open-enrollment policy allows students to transfer to schools of their choice as long as space is available and the campuses’ ethnic balances remain intact.

Parents should check with the schools to find out whether lotteries will be held and at what time. District officials said all drawings will be completed today.

Under district guidelines, a committee of three people will select applicants’ names from a box. The principal will be responsible for supervising the drawing procedures and selecting the committee.

The school secretary or office manager willrecord the names in the order drawn.

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 to enroll.

After the required number of applicants has been selected, the remaining names will be drawn and placed on a waiting list in the order chosen.

Open-enrollment transfers will be granted to students on the waiting list only to replace original applicants who have either withdrawn their applications or have not enrolled by the end of the first week of the new school year.