Glendale High Chosen Site for Evening School : Students: Classes from 2:45 to 9 p.m. are expected to ease overcrowding and save money. There will be no interscholastic sports.

GLENDALE — Glendale High School was chosen Tuesday as the site for what is believed to be California’s first evening high school, shocking some parents and teachers who had been certain it would go to another campus.

Beginning next fall, the school will be shared by administrators, teachers and students of Glendale High and the new Evening High School, which is expected to operate from 2:45 to 9 p.m.

The Glendale School Board selected Glendale High on East Broadway on a unanimous vote based on a recommendation from Deputy School Supt. Donald Empey.

Giving high school students the option to take classes in the late afternoon and evening is one way for such financially strapped school systems as Glendale’s to cope with overcrowding, while saving money by using existing facilities.

Evening High School will not offer interscholastic sports. But it will offer a wider range of courses than those at continuation schools for teen-agers with academic and disciplinary problems, Glendale Unified School District officials say.

The question of where to put the new school raised strong opposition from neighbors of Hoover High School on Glenwood Road, who feared it would increase nighttime traffic and teen-age loitering. About 200 people signed petitions urging the district to look elsewhere.

District officials have high hopes that late-afternoon and evening classes will appeal to students who do not perform well in the morning or who are unable to spend time with their families because of conflicting work schedules.

The Glendale Teachers Assn. backs the idea.

At Glendale High, some teachers--including one who served on the task force that established guidelines for the experimental program--were unaware that Empey had recommended their campus.

Parents of students at Glendale High worry that efforts to incorporate freshmen into the school next fall for the first time will be complicated by the simultaneous launching of Evening High School.

“I think a lot of people have questions, logistically, about how things will work. Quite frankly, there are concerns. The timing of it seems difficult,” said Jan Bills, president of Glendale High’s Parent-Teacher-Student Assn.

Bills and others said they had been convinced the evening school would be sent to Hoover High. But Empey contends that neither he nor the task force ever gave grounds for such an impression during the search for an adequate site.

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Glendale has three high school campuses, in addition to a continuation school. Empey said serious consideration was given to only two: Glendale and Hoover.

“The whole idea that this Evening High School would go to Hoover or Glendale has been in the discussion stages for several months,” he said. “There’s been no secret about it.”

To remain open for its first year, Evening High School must have at least 250 students, he added. District officials envision it may serve as many as 600 before the turn of the century.

In his report to the school board, Empey listed two main reasons that Glendale High would make the best site for Evening High School: The campus is close to major streets and needs a staggered school day to alleviate the overcrowding of about 3,440 students next fall.

Hoover High School, by contrast, is in a primarily residential neighborhood, will serve 2,959 students next fall and has 210 fewer parking spaces than Glendale High.