ORANGE : District Plan Would ‘Redistribute’ Students

A tentative master plan for the Orange Unified School District suggests redrawing attendance boundaries, buying portable classrooms and building schools to cope with a “bulge” of elementary students.

Chief Fiscal Officer Joyce Capelle presented two reports of preliminary recommendations from school officials to the Board of Education in February, and a planning committee of parents and school staff is expected to unveil final plans by March 9.

The district can expect about 3,000 new elementary students by the year 2000, the staff report said. District enrollment had been 24,000 for years before climbing to 27,000, Capelle said. Orange Unified serves students from Orange, Villa Park and parts of Anaheim Hills, Garden Grove and Santa Ana.

The increase is caused by a rise in the birth rate for children now attending kindergarten through second grade and a boom in new housing developments, the report said. The district’s 26 elementary schools can absorb most of the students, but students will have to be “redistributed,” Capelle said.

“At the present time, we have plenty of capacity; it’s just in the wrong places,” she said. “The extreme ends of the district are over-enrolled, but there is plenty of space in the middle.”

New developments in Anaheim Hills are straining existing schools, but special tax assessments have given the district about $10 million to build two new schools in the area.

Problems at overcrowded schools on the western and eastern ends of town can be solved by redrawing boundaries and installing portable classrooms, Capelle said.

The calendar for adopting the plan includes a March 16 study session by the school board, three meetings to hear public comments and adoption of the plan May 11. Boundary changes should go into effect in July.