Plan Now for New Schools

The numbers coming out of the Los Angeles Unified School District last week were ominous: Within a decade, 70% of San Fernando Valley high schools could swell by more than 1,000 students each as the grandchildren of baby boomers and the children of immigrants swamp already crowded campuses from Pacoima to Canoga Park. District administrators plan to present a strategy later this month, but school board members and community leaders need to start thinking now about how to build new campuses in an era when vacant land is scarce and money is even scarcer.

The crunch exists districtwide, but nowhere is it projected to be more severe than in the Valley. Already, school district data reveal disproportionate growth in the Valley. Although it comprises just one-third of the district’s enrollment, the Valley accounted for 46% of the new students for the current school year. That kind of lopsided growth is expected to continue through an enrollment peak in the 2005-06 school year. Of the eight new high schools some district officials estimate will be necessary to accommodate the growth districtwide, three may be needed in the Valley. Forecasters predict the heaviest demand in neighborhoods now served by Monroe, Van Nuys and Polytechnic highs.

That’s no small order. Although the district has about $900 million available for new construction as part of Proposition BB--the school bond measure passed in April--a new high school can cost $100 million to build, including land costs, legal bills, construction and furnishing. School officials hope to get financial help from the state, but whether the money will be there is uncertain. Gov. Pete Wilson has proposed a series of bond measures over the next eight years to pay for new school construction, but they require voter approval.

Plus, high schools need a lot of land--a commodity not nearly as plentiful as in the suburban salad days when most of the Valley’s schools were built. A high school can require from 40 to 50 acres. Assembling that kind of land in some of the most densely populated neighborhoods in the Valley requires long-term planning to scout available, affordable and appropriate sites. And it may require condemning property. However unpopular condemnation may be, the school board must face up to the fact that it may have to use its power of eminent domain to cobble together acceptable sites in established neighborhoods.

Given the fiscal, political--and potentially legal--obstacles, construction of a new high school could easily take a decade, meaning the doors to new schools might open just as the demand for them peaks. Despite the hurdles, new schools remain the only practical solution. Even with year-round schedules and the termination of busing, Valley high schools may be bursting with students who are today’s first- and second-graders. Elementary school growth has been accommodated through a combination of strategies--from portable classrooms and the reopening of closed campuses to the creation of primary centers.

But these approaches alone won’t solve the impending crunch at high schools, where trailers already crowd campuses. The next 10 years will be difficult ones for the school district and for communities trying to shoehorn new schools into tight quarters and tight budgets. The time to start is now.