Year-Round School Schedule Quickly Changed : Education: Citing enrollment drop, trustees return Old Orchard Elementary to a traditional calendar.

Only two weeks after Old Orchard Elementary School switched to a year-round, multitrack schedule, district trustees have opted to return to a traditional school year.

Newhall School District officials said at a school board meeting Tuesday night that the year-round program, initiated to alleviate expected overcrowding at the school, is no longer valid because of a decline in enrollment since the Northridge earthquake.

The dip in enrollment came after a decade-long trend of growth.

“The least amount of growth we had in the last 10 years was 2% growth,” said trustee Gonzalo Freixes. “Since the earthquake, we’ve had a 2% drop. People got scared and left.”

The trustees voted 5 to 0 to go back to a traditional calendar.

“For instructional reasons, we thought it would be better,” Freixes said.

Switching Old Orchard Elementary School back to a traditional schedule calls into question a $500,000 state grant awarded for the installation and upgrade of air-conditioning equipment in the district. The funds require a minimum number of students be on a year-round, multitrack schedule.

But district officials believe that because the district met the requirements when the grant was awarded, they will be able to keep the funding.

The return to the traditional schedule will probably be a relief to parents concerned about Old Orchard Elementary School’s bilingual instruction, which was to be offered only during part of the school year on the year-round schedule. District officials said they didn’t have adequate staffing to provide the instruction for the full schedule.

Letters explaining the schedule change are to be mailed today to students’ families. All students will return to the traditional schedule in September.