Cooler Schools Promised as Year-Round Classes Begin

Thousands of San Fernando Valley students start the 1999-2000 school year today with air-conditioned classrooms and warnings from administrators that they must have complete immunization records.

In the Valley, 49 schools in the Los Angeles Unified School District operate on one of four multi-track, year-round calendars.

School officials warned that all kindergartners and students transferring to the district can start classes only if they have health and immunization records, authorized or signed by a public health clinic, health care provider or private physician.

Records must show inoculations against polio, mumps, measles, rubella, diphtheria, tetanus, whooping cough and hepatitis B, and include results of a tuberculosis test. For further information, contact the child’s school.

Once classes start, officials said that unlike many students who sweated through summers past, now most will have cool classrooms.

“The year-round schools were our top priority,” said Caroline Madden, a senior administrative analyst for Proposition BB, the $2.4-billion school repair and improvement bond measure approved by Los Angeles voters in spring 1997. “We want students in classes with air conditioning.”

By the end of September, district officials said, they need to install or finish installing air conditioners in classrooms at 57 Valley schools. Work at some of the schools is nearly completed.

The district is also busy repairing air conditioning units. At Birmingham High School in Van Nuys earlier this month, 32 units leaked water.

“It’s an inconvenience, not anything dangerous,” said Madden, adding that the air conditioners should be working by Wednesday, when students begin summer school classes.

Five year-round Valley schools will have to wait until next summer for air conditioning in their gymnasiums, where students and faculty have had to exercise in temperatures exceeding 100 degrees, without air circulation or windows. The Los Angeles Board of Education approved $8 million last spring for air conditioning in 34 gyms districtwide.

Minus the gym, Monroe High School in North Hills has had air conditioning for three years. Principal Joan Elam said the school uses the gym as a classroom, and that the heat makes it unhealthful and difficult to concentrate.

“[The gym] is the one key component,” Elam said. “We are looking forward to air conditioning. It’s a safety issue.”