Year-Round Schools Given Go-Ahead

The Los Angeles school board Monday converted four San Fernando Valley high schools to a controversial year-round schedule despite emotional protests by parents, one of whom collapsed at the podium and had to be carried away by paramedics.

The four schools--Monroe, North Hollywood, Francis Polytechnic and San Fernando--will be the first high schools in the Valley to switch from a traditional calendar to the year-round timetable, which eliminates summer vacations for two-thirds of the students.

The Los Angeles Board of Education made the decision by a 4-3 vote, with members Barbara Boudreaux, Julie Korenstein and David Tokofsky dissenting.

At issue for most board members was the effect of the schedule on the magnet program for 244 highly gifted students at North Hollywood High. Parents there have bitterly complained that their children will be unable to attend academic enrichment programs, often held on college campuses in the summer, if they do not have summer vacations.

Dozens of parents of magnet students attended the meeting Monday, saying they were shut out of a local decision that unfairly discriminates against their children.

But another parent, Tony Maldonado, president of the North Hollywood High School bilingual advisory council, said the school’s leadership panel did not believe the magnet students needed special treatment. He accused parents of magnet students of being unwilling to cooperate.

But just as he was completing his presentation, Maldonado collapsed to the floor, causing Supt. Sid Thompson to jump out of his seat to help him up. A doctor, Hazim El Meligy, who was attending the meeting because of his concerns about the North Hollywood schedule, also helped Maldonado, loosening his tie and taking him to a chair.

The board meeting was recessed for nearly half an hour, and paramedics eventually carried Maldonado out of the board room.

“I’ve never seen this happen before,” Thompson said. “I cannot remember anyone collapsing after speaking. This was a first.”

Maldonado was treated elsewhere in the building and released to seek treatment on his own, district officials said.

Once order was restored, the board returned to its discussion. District officials say the schools need to impose the year-round calendar to find enough classroom space to accommodate a flood of new ninth-grade students as the schools expand from three years to four. The change is part of a general reorganization, in which elementary schools will lose sixth-graders, who will move to middle schools, bumping the ninth grade into high schools.

That reorganization, district officials say, will result in a massive influx of students at the four high schools, which do not have room for them. Polytechnic, for example, is expected to enroll 1,200 new students in the coming year.

But the year-round calendar squeezes more students onto a campus by eliminating the vacation period in which buildings go unused. Instead, students are divided into three groups. At any one time, two groups are in class and the other is on vacation. But that means many students must take their annual vacations in the winter months.

That brought on the attack by the North Hollywood magnet parents, who say their children will be forced to abandon summer academic enrichment programs at such universities as Harvard, Oxford and Yale.

The parents also complained to the board two weeks ago that they were shut out of the decision that led to their children being placed on the controversial schedule. That decision was made by the school’s leadership council, comprised of parents, staff and teachers.

District officials, who examined the issue for the board over the past two weeks, said the school could have placed the magnet students on the one schedule most similar to the traditional September-to-June calendar. The council said the magnet students were not put on that track because to do so would put too many students on that calendar.

A member of that panel, Kenneth Klatzko, said late Monday that he would ask the council to hold a special meeting to reconsider the decision.

Nonetheless, most board members said they were satisfied that the school followed appropriate procedures and that the local decision should prevail.

“It is not our business to overturn that [local] decision,” said board member Jeff Horton. “It would make a mockery of everything we’ve said about local decision-making.”

But others, like board member Barbara Boudreaux, said the board should intervene because placing the magnet students on a summer vacation schedule would increase busing costs by $105,000.

“Local control can get out of control,” Boudreaux said. “We have to be the ones who say whether the decision is good or not. And we have to face up to that.”