Newport-Mesa District Has Population Dilemma

A study of enrollment in the Newport-Mesa Unified School District shows that high schools throughout the district are only 50% to 60% full, but elementary and middle schools are more crowded--with one at 113% of capacity.

The overcrowding problem is most urgent among schools that feed into Newport Harbor High School, said Dale Woolley, director of planning and program development, who presented the figures to the board Tuesday.

In response, school officials are considering creation of a middle school that would include grades six through eight at Ensign Intermediate School, which is now limited to seventh and eighth grades, Woolley said. “That takes the sixth grades out of the elementary schools and would give them some more room,” he said.

District officials decided earlier not to add temporary classrooms to three elementary schools in that area this year, opting to convert rooms used as science and technology labs back to classrooms until long-range planning is done. One school, Kaiser Primary, is at 113% of capacity, the study showed.

The board tentatively set a meeting for May 16 to finalize a long-range plan for the Newport Harbor zone. After crowding in that zone is resolved, the board will begin tackling expected growth in the districtwide student population through 2000.

Department heads have studied 18 options, considering their effects on the quality of education, ethnic balance, “ideal” school size, student safety, transportation and other factors.

Further study will be given to a range of ideas including consolidating the district’s four high schools into three or even two; redrawing some attendance boundaries, and creating separate middle schools in the Corona del Mar, Costa Mesa and Newport Harbor zones.

One obstacle is that until a settlement is reached in the Orange County bankruptcy, board members are reluctant to make any expensive, long-range commitments like the ones that would be required to open a vacant school.