L.A. Unified Needs 8 New High Schools, Analyst Says

As the Los Angeles Unified School District begins for the first time to grapple with the prospects of long-term growth, a district analyst reported Thursday that the state’s largest public school system will need at least eight new high schools in the next decade to accommodate about 30,000 more teenagers.

Because many of the future ninth-through 12th-graders already attend elementary schools, the most affected areas are known: the eastern San Fernando Valley and a swath south and west of downtown.

As the population bubble commonly known as the “baby boom echo” works its way through the system, two high schools will face the largest influx: Sun Valley’s Polytechnic High and downtown’s Belmont High--where a new high school is being built.

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Along the way, dozens of new elementary schools and at least three more middle schools will be needed.

Roger Rasmussen, the independent analysis unit director, estimated that the construction would consume all of the money expected to be available: $900 million provided for new construction in Proposition BB, the recently approved school repair and construction bond measure, plus matching state contributions.

Rasmussen said it is urgent that the district begin searching for land because the 20-acre sites needed for high schools will be hard to find and afford.

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“Los Angeles is running out of space, and we need to figure out what we’re going to do about it,” said school board member Victoria Castro, chairwoman of the facilities committee where the new information was aired Thursday.

Among the financial uncertainties that must be tackled by the district are what to expect from the state, which has no bond money to distribute and historically has given L.A. Unified less than its share, and what to expect to pay for land, which could become more expensive if the economy continues to improve.

Some demographers question the wisdom of building too many schools, because beyond the population bubble the number of babies and toddlers has tapered off.

In her July report, “Birth Trends & School Enrollments,” San Francisco Bay Area demographer Shelley Lapkoff warned educators to be cautious about overbuilding because California’s births fell 10% between 1990 and 1995. But on Thursday, Lapkoff said the lifting of the state’s economic recession could counterbalance that population downturn because it could influence more families to stay and could draw a steady stream of arrivals.

“Also, we know births have gone down for five to six years, but they may go back up again,” she said.

Thursday’s presentation was intended as a precursor to a complete building master plan, a document the district has never before created. There was no incentive to do so, officials said, because there was so little construction money to accomplish those goals.

“During the period prior to the bond, we could plan, but there was no real way to turn the plan into reality,” Rasmussen said.

This fall’s estimated record enrollment of 680,000, coupled with the statewide effort to reduce primary grade class sizes, provided a wake-up call. Administrators became keenly aware that patchwork efforts to squeeze kids into portable classrooms and divided auditoriums was not a long-term solution.

The high school problem is the most urgent because those schools are the most expensive to build--an estimated $100 million apiece including land--and take up the most acreage in an increasingly crowded city. Other options to absorb the growth include long-distance learning by computers and possible smaller community education centers where high school students could spend part of their days.

In addition, the district has promised to reduce high school class size back to pre-1990 levels--from an average of 38 1/2 students to an average of 35 1/2.

Although the district has routinely built elementary schools around the city at the rate of one or two a year, it has only constructed one high school in the past decade: the Bravo Medical Magnet on the Eastside. A deal to buy the former Ambassador Hotel in the Mid-Wilshire area fell through several years ago and that money was transferred to the Belmont Learning Center site near downtown, where ground was broken for a high school this summer.

Rasmussen’s predictions were based on the most intense possible use of all district high schools--a year-round schedule that requires two-thirds of the students to attend at any one time. Even if enrollment drops after 2006, it would only mean a welcome return to traditional schedules.

“I don’t have any fear that we’re overbuilding,” he said. “If we have a dip, in the worst case we go back to two regular semesters.”

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High School Shortage

The Los Angeles Unified School District said Thursday that it will need at least eightnew high schools in the next decade, mostly in the eastern San Fernando Valley and an area extending south and west of downtown.

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Areas of the L.A. Unified School District projected to have the most severe shortageof seats in grades 9-12 by 2006.