School Officials Present Plan for 11 Valley Primary Centers

Los Angeles school officials Thursday unveiled a plan to build 11 primary centers in the East San Fernando Valley instead of tearing down a shopping center to make room for a new high school.

By constructing schools for students in kindergarten through third grade, the district would achieve its goal of getting more students into smaller schools and would avoid a battle with community groups that do not want the Robinsons-May department store replaced with a school.

Officials had planned to condemn the store and corporate headquarters on Laurel Canyon Boulevard in North Hollywood.

The new plan gives the first detailed example of how district chief operating officer Howard Miller intends to add high school space to communities where it will be difficult to acquire parcels of 20 or more acres needed for traditional senior highs.

The new high school space would be provided by converting two middle schools to grades nine through 12, said Gordon Wohlers, assistant superintendent for policy research and development. To make room for the middle school students, seven elementary schools would shift to grades four through eight, and two would expand to kindergarten through eighth grade.

To handle the youngest students, three elementary schools would join the 11 new schools as primary centers.

Wohlers told the Board of Education’s facilities committee that his office has not yet pinpointed the best locations for all the new schools, but promised to complete that work for a community meeting scheduled Jan. 20.

“This is not a done deal,” he said. “This is a first take.”

He said the new centers could be built by 2002. The following year, the existing elementary schools would be rehabilitated and converted, with the fourth- and fifth-graders remaining on campus. Seventh- and eighth-graders would be moved to temporary schools during conversion of existing middle schools, which would be completed in 2005.

Board members praised the plan.

“This is a wonderful design . . . a spectacular presentation of a big picture idea,” said committee Chairman David Tokofsky.