Van Nuys Principal Rebuked : Education: District scolds high school official for urging elimination of one magnet program and cuts in two others.

Los Angeles Unified School District administrators have chastised the principal of Van Nuys High School for trying to kill the school’s popular medical magnet program and sharply curtail two others, efforts that triggered an angry outcry from parents and students.

Principal Robert G. Scharf had recommended that cutbacks be made in the school’s medicine, performing arts and math-science magnets to accommodate expected enrollment increases, so the campus would not be forced by overcrowding to adopt a year-round schedule.

But in a series of memos released Thursday, district officials scolded Scharf for trying to make the first cutbacks ever imposed in a magnet program and ordered him to reinstate all three programs to their full capacity and consider other alternatives to handle the school’s mushrooming enrollment.

Scharf had said last month that he planned to phase out the popular medical magnet program--which has a waiting list of more than 600 students--because Valley Presbyterian Hospital, which co-sponsors the program, was going to limit the students’ access to hospital equipment and facilities, beginning this fall.

Tim Bojeczko, assistant coordinator of the medical magnet program for Valley Presbyterian, said classrooms and other hospital facilities now used by the school are needed by the hospital for expanded community education programs.

But another San Fernando Valley hospital is considering offering its facilities for the practical training sessions that make the magnet program so popular among students and parents.

Officials of Valley Hospital--which will be known as the Sherman Way campus of Northridge Hospital Medical Center, after a recent merger--are finalizing details of the arrangement.

“It looks pretty close to an agreement,” said Dr. Myron Berdischewsky, senior vice president of medical affairs for Northridge Hospital.

District officials said the proposed elimination of a magnet program was unprecedented.

The magnet programs, designed to draw students from across the city through special educational programs, were launched more than 20 years ago as a result of a court order to promote racial integration. About 42,000 students are enrolled in magnet classes at 132 campuses citywide, and 30,000 more are on waiting lists.

Scharf had planned to eliminate the medical magnet program and cap enrollment at the other two to provide room for ninth-grade students, who will be added to the school in two years as part of a districtwide reconfiguration.

However, after a series of frantic meetings among district and school officials, Scharf was ordered to maintain all three magnet programs at their current enrollment levels. Van Nuys High is the only school in the district with three magnet programs and one of only three district schools with a medical careers program, said district magnet coordinator Richard Battaglia.