Connections Sought to Man Lurking at Schools : Crime: Mustached suspect tried to lure two schoolgirls. Red Toyota was spotted in similar incidents.

Police and school officials are trying to determine whether a man who tried to lure two schoolgirls to his car Monday is the same man who has been connected to five similar incidents near San Fernando Valley schools over the past two months.

The two girls were standing behind a fence near Sun Valley Middle School about 10 a.m. when a man driving a late-model red Toyota Corolla pulled up and asked the girls if they wanted a ride, according to school Principal Emilio Garcia.

Garcia said a man driving a similar car approached a male student on Wednesday calling the boy by his first name and asking him if he wanted a ride. The boy reported the incident to school police and said the car’s license plate included the number and letters “H2J.”

“We don’t know if it’s the same individual but the description of the car was similar,” Garcia said. One difference between the two incidents is that the driver who approached the girls on Monday had a mustache.

About a half hour after that incident, Garcia said, several students spotted a red Toyota Corolla a few miles away from the school at a hamburger stand near Vineland Avenue and Sherman Way.

Los Angeles police officers assigned to the North Hollywood Division are investigating, LAPD Detective Woodrow Parks said.

Last week, a school district memo warned parents, staff members and students at 50 Los Angeles public schools in the West Valley that a man had reportedly exposed himself or tried to coax children into his car five times over the past six weeks.

The incidents began Dec. 16 near Van Nuys Middle School and others were subsequently reported near Bertrand, Emelita and Gault elementary schools.

Garcia said memos alerting parents to the two incidents in Sun Valley were sent home with students Monday. Students at Gault Street Elementary School were also given notices alerting parents to two other incidents near the Van Nuys campus, said school Principal John Kinnon.

Kinnon said that in one case, an adult reported on Jan. 17 that a man in a red car parked near the school had exposed himself to her.