A LOOK AHEAD: Pacoima’s Maclay Primary Center is among first of small schools opening in Los Angeles for grades K-2 only. They help relieve overcrowding and offer preschool-like atmosphere while . . . : Going Beyond a Reduction in Class Size

Peer through the office window of Maclay Primary Center in Pacoima and you can see the entire campus--15 classrooms around a playground of Hula-Hoops and hopscotch squares.

With only 270 students in kindergarten through second grade, Maclay has a fraction of the children of traditional elementary schools--and recesses as orderly as fire drills.

“The fewer students you have, the more contact you make,” said Maclay Principal Giovanna Foschetti, whose school is one of four primary centers in the Los Angeles Unified School District.

Top leaders from the district and the city of Los Angeles now want to expand the network of centers, part of a broad effort by the district to accommodate unprecedented growth and shrink classes in kindergarten through third grade in accordance with the state’s class-size reduction initiative.

A task force appointed by school district Supt. Ruben Zacarias and Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan is pressing to open nearly 30 primary centers over the next three years--an ambitious undertaking that school district staff members acknowledge could cost about $90 million and would depend on finding suitable sites.

The primary centers are meant to relieve overcrowding at neighboring schools and to spare the district’s youngest pupils from long bus rides by keeping them as close to home as possible. But advocates say their tiny size, year-round schedules and preschool-like atmosphere offer a host of other benefits, including small classes of 20 students or less and prolonged protection from older students.

“Children get lost in larger schools,” said Rosalinda Lugo, a task force member and senior leader in the community group United Neighborhoods Organization. “Primary centers provide children in critical years with a chance to be safe from gangs and other influences.”

Facing a record enrollment of 681,505 students this year, the district is placing more portable classrooms on campuses, enlarging schools and reopening others closed during years of white flight.

Primary centers are a practical piece of the equation. With as few as six portable classrooms placed around a playground, each center’s land and facilities cost about $3 million, a bargain compared with the $12-million to $15-million cost of conventional elementary schools. And they can be assembled in six to nine months, a fraction of the two to five years it ordinarily takes to build a school.

The district began operating primary centers a decade ago to relieve overcrowding in poor, densely populated neighborhoods. But the concept gained momentum this year when Riordan and Zacarias, the new superintendent, began meeting to discuss a range of educational issues. The idea of expanding the primary centers surfaced in the discussions, and the pair set up a committee to investigate.

The task force--a mix of land-use experts, entrepreneurs, neighborhood activists, school officials and others--has identified four initial sites. Three are existing buildings in the Valley and Echo Park owned by the Department of Water and Power. The fourth is a city-owned parking lot in South Los Angeles.

*

Task force Chairman O’Malley Miller, a real estate attorney, believes that the four sites can be converted into primary centers by next fall. School district timelines show that three of the sites could be ready by September, and the fourth by December--depending on necessary demolition and environmental reviews.

The district will spend $10.3 million on the four schools, with funds provided by the state and the Proposition BB school bond.

School district staff members also have found two privately owned sites for potential development into primary centers, but no timeline has been established for them. The district plans to redraw school boundaries in the areas served by new primary centers so children can attend the campus nearest their home, whether it is a primary center or a conventional elementary school.

Teachers, administrators and parents at the existing primary centers applaud the effort to expand the program. They say the centers serve as stabilizing forces in the lives of their students, most of whom come from low-income neighborhoods and typically arrive speaking Spanish.

At Maclay, teachers and office staff members know the names of most students and say they are better able to quickly identify and address trouble. The campus is gated to keep out intruders.

“When a child is having problems, we can get to the parents,” Foschetti said. “We get to know them.”

Parents say they have found a home of their own at the school, where they are asked to volunteer at least two hours a month. Many now exceed the minimum, showing up on various mornings to serve breakfast to children, escort students to the restroom or help teachers prepare their lessons.

“I feel like I’m learning how to teach my boys, how to work with them at home,” said Luis Vargas, 38, whose two sons attend Maclay. Teachers, meanwhile, say the small size has opened doors to innovation, allowing them to collaborate on lessons and try new methods of teaching.

Maclay groups its children by ability rather than grade level, an approach used in some classes at the other centers. Kindergartners, for instance, can study the same material as second-graders, each helping the other, in an arrangement that teachers say engenders cooperation.

“We help them to read and tell them the letters so they can learn to read faster,” said 7-year-old Daisy Bolton, a Maclay second-grader. “We feel like we are teachers.”

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Primary Centers

Los Angeles city and school officials are seeking to expand the number of “primary centers” that serve students in kindergarten through second grade. The mini-schools offer small campuses and nurturing environments to help young students master basic skills.

Existing Primary Centers

1. Maclay Primary Center, 12513 Gain St., Pacoima

2. White House Place Primary Center, 108 S. Bimini Place, L.A.

3. Bellevue Primary School, 610 N. Micheltorena St., Silverlake

4. Arco Iris Primary Center, 4504 Ascot Ave., L.A.

****

5. 611 N. Hoover St., L.A.

6. West of Vermont, between 58th and 59th streets, South Central

7. 14651 Oxnard St., Van Nuys

8. 6550 Van Nuys Blvd., Van Nuys

9. Nordhoff Street between Sepulveda Blvd. and Van Nuys Blvd.

10. Near MacArthur Park