Hitting the Books, Not the Beach

Summer vacation isn’t what is used to be.

Just ask Erica Ortiz.

Instead of a three-month summer break, Erica and most of her friends at San Fernando High School got just a week off between finals and their new school year.

“It was really hectic,” said Erica, a 16-year-old junior. She is one of several thousand San Fernando Valley teenagers who lost their summer vacation this year.

Three Valley high schools--San Fernando, Monroe and Francis Polytechnic--have started year-round classes for the first time, a change imposed to accommodate a flood of new ninth-grade students as the schools expand from three grade levels to four.

And for student Anna Solorio, making room for the new freshman class boiled down to one point: no summer break.

“I’ve never been on a year-round schedule like this before, so it feels weird,” said the 15-year-old San Fernando junior.

Erica said going to school when temperatures are soaring--and most other teens are kicking back--makes her campus, from the hallways to the cafeteria, seem more crowded. She also said that all school activities will have to be held twice, because the students will now be on different schedules.

Those seniors who begin their semester in July--and therefore finish in April--will have to return to school in June to attend the prom, graduation and senior picnic.

“It’s going to be awkward having to come back for your own activities,” said Anthony Balladarez, a 17-year-old San Fernando senior.

And so went some of the complaints heard Monday as students joined teachers and administrators in making the unusual transition from one school year to another.

Air conditioning, installed in anticipation of the new schedule, was running at all three schools, helping to ease the change.

“It’s been extremely smooth and calm so far,” said Carolyn Burch, principal at Francis Polytechnic High School.

Burch said her school had it easier because many of the new students were coming from middle schools already on year-round calendars.

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The change in schedule, which began July 1, is part of a general reorganization in the Los Angeles Unified School District. Elementary schools are losing sixth-graders, who have been moved to middle schools, bumping ninth-graders into high schools.

The reorganization created large freshman classes at San Fernando, Monroe and Francis Polytechnic high schools. The year-round calendar allows school administrators to squeeze those students onto campus.

Year-round classes divide the student body into three groups, two of which are in class at any one time while the other is on vacation. At San Fernando, for example, about 3,000 students are in class and another 1,500 students--currently on vacation--will start their school year at the end of August.

As a result, students who begin classes now will take their long vacation in winter.

San Fernando Principal Philip Saldivar said fewer ninth-graders than expected have enrolled, about half of the 1,200 to 1,400 ninth-graders who were anticipated. Another 300 students are scheduled to begin classes at the end of August.

The student shortfall means the school ends up with fewer teachers, which has caused crowding in some ninth-grade classes, Saldivar said.