New School of Thought . . .

A proposal to build 11 primary centers in the east San Fernando Valley and convert two middle schools to grades 9 through 12 is an example of the kind of creative thinking the Los Angeles Unified School District needs to solve its enormous overcrowding problem.

Under the proposal, unveiled a week ago, seven East Valley elementary schools would shift to grades four through eight to accommodate the displaced middle school students, and two would expand to kindergarten through grade eight. Three elementary schools would join the 11 new schools as primary centers.

Why all this shifting? The biggest obstacle to building much-needed new schools has been finding the recommended 25 to 50 acres for a traditional senior high school, especially in densely populated areas like the east Valley, without condemning many homes or businesses or buying contaminated industrial property.

High schools also cost more and take longer to build. Shifting middle schools to high schools and elementary schools to middle schools and building new primary centers would solve some of the land acquisition problems and provide needed seats more quickly and less expensively.

The strategy is part of recently appointed Chief Operating Officer Howard Miller’s edict for the district to use the space it already has more intelligently. To do so, Miller says, is the only realistic hope the district has of finding seats for the 120,000 additional students projected districtwide in the next six years.

Many Valley residents have already given up on the district’s ability to get anything done. On the same day the district’s latest proposal was unveiled, a group called Finally Restoring Excellence in Education, or FREE, turned in 30,000 signatures to the Los Angeles County Office of Education advocating two independent Valley school systems.

But FREE’s petitions are not going to get schools built for Valley children who need them now.

The LAUSD’s East Valley proposal is just that at this stage, with questions still to be answered. The proposal does not say, for instance, where the new primary centers would be built. And although placing primary centers doesn’t require as much land--or, typically, generate as much controversy--as high schools, space still must be found. School officials hope to recommend locations by a Jan. 20 community meeting.

There are questions, as well, from an educational standpoint, like the one raised by LAUSD board member Julie Korenstein on how well eighth-graders and fourth-graders will mix.

But what is clear is the scope of the problem. Enrollment has taken off in the last five years, growing by 80,000 students districtwide. Schools are up against the limits of portable classrooms, year-round schedules and busing. New schools are needed, but finding the place to build them is proving so problematic that Miller declared the district’s earlier strategy of building 100 new schools in the next 10 years to be impossible.

New thinking--whether using the space the district already owns more intelligently, building multistory schools that require less acreage than the standard single- or two-story schools, sharing public facilities with community colleges, parks and libraries or creating new campuses in refurbished buildings--is desperately needed. Only such thinking can restore the community’s faith in its schools.