Panel Readies Report on Crowded Schools

The Board of Education will hear recommendations Monday on ways to alleviate crowding in elementary schools from a citizens group that has spent six months studying the issue.

Among the proposals is one to convert schools to year-round schedules by 1999.

“We’ve had horrendous increases in population,” said Carol Merritt, chairwoman of the citizens committee. “We’re making the recommendation that entire district [elementary schools] go year-round.”

The committee is also presenting four proposals to the school board designed to reduce crowding and better manage class-size reduction.

However, since the district cannot afford to build schools in the near future, the recommendations involve boundary changes likely to upset some parents, Merritt said.

“It was very difficult to move kids around and maintain some kind of semblance of neighborhood schools,” she said. “Somebody is going to get displaced. There are going to be some unhappy people.”

The district will also need to build two high schools by 2007, to accommodate an expected increase of 9,000 high school students, and middle schools will need to convert to year-round schedules in five years.

Because the recommendations are expected to generate controversy, the district has scheduled six public meetings at elementary schools: Wednesday for Arroyo and Barbara Benson; Thursday for Robert P. Heideman and C.C. Lambert; Saturday for Tustin Ranch; March 3 for Marjorie Veeh and W.R. Nelson; March 4 for Jeane Thorman and Benjamin Beswick; March 6 for Loma Vista and Helen Estock schools.

Monday’s board meeting begins at 7 p.m., but those interested in examining maps of the proposed boundary changes are invited to do so beginning at 6 p.m.

The board meeting room is at 300 South C St. in Tustin.