Schools Back Year-Round Schedules

Principals at Ligget, Hart and Erwin elementary schools on Tuesday hailed a proposal to make their schools year-round as a relief to the overcrowding they’ve endured for the past several years.

“We’re busing almost 100 kids out already and we’ve been doing that for the past two years,” said Ligget Principal David Sanchez. “Going year-round would give us the needed room and space and also some air-conditioning for the students.”

The three elementary schools are among 26 campuses under consideration by Los Angeles Unified School District administrators for year-round schedules because they have reached their capacity and have been forced to stop receiving new students. Faced with enrollment increases of more than 1% each year for the next five years, district officials unveiled tentative year-round plans at Monday’s school board meeting. Board members will not begin to vote on the proposal, and alternatives, until next month.

Two of the Valley schools under consideration--Ligget, in Panorama City, and Hart, in Canoga Park--have bused students to neighboring campuses for at least two years, said Gordon Wohlers, assistant superintendent of school reform.

Erwin Street, in Van Nuys, has been spared from busing because a large population of transient students has allowed its principal, Marla Mondheim, to fill vacancies as students leave.

But overcrowding has affected Erwin Street school in other ways. Like Ligget Street elementary, Erwin Street school has doubled up its reduced first- and second-grade classes into one classroom, creating a handful of classes of 40 students with two teachers.

“We’re just waiting for the bungalows so we can get students into the real 20 to 1 classes,” Mondheim said, in reference to portable classrooms on order. “But this is the reality we’re faced with.”

Making the schools year-round is one of the few remaining options to solve L.A. Unified’s overcrowding problems, Wohlers said. District officials also plan to reopen Garden Grove Elementary School in Reseda in September for kindergarten through fifth grade. The school was closed in the 1980s due to low enrollment and consolidation. Wohlers said that once reopened, Garden Grove will take students from neighboring schools operating at their full capacity.

“I just don’t see any other option,” Wohlers said about the district’s proposals. “We’re so close to running out of space at the elementary level districtwide.”

Hart Street Principal Jackie Harris said the number of kindergarten classes there jumped from six to eight in one year.

“When we opened the school this year we were already overcrowded,” Harris said. “We’ve closed our doors to new students earlier and earlier in the last few years. Now we’re busing out just under 100 students.”

The district has seen its largest jump in student enrollment this year with 18,570 new students, creating a district of more than 667,000 pupils. And the numbers are expected only to increase next year, Wohlers said. In the elementary level alone, Wohlers said, the district is anticipating a surge of about 7,000 students.

“I’m going to start out the year with 6,000 more seats and have 7,000 more students so the problem still isn’t solved,” Wohlers said.