IRVINE

Children in the Los Naranjos special education preschool can stay together for another year. But the reprieve will not last long. Irvine Unified School District officials said they will have to transfer some of the program’s 140 preschoolers to other sites over the next few years to make room for students coming from the Irvine Co.’s new Oak Creek development.

A K-6 school will open in that community in 2002, and Los Naranjos will become one of Oak Creek’s neighborhood schools, district officials said. While villages in Irvine are designed to have their own neighborhood schools, the special education program draws students from all over the city. Since these children already attend schools outside their neighborhoods, it is easier to move them, Deputy Supt. Paul Reed said. The district eventually will find a permanent place for the program, but some classes will have to move to other schools in the meantime, he said.

Some parents said they don’t understand why their children should move at all. “The district should honor the special education children and not just give the Irvine Co. what it wants,” said Areta Guthrey, whose 3-year-old daughter, Aleta, attends Los Naranjos. “I’ve lived here for nine years, and Oak Creek residents will get a new school. Why should my daughter have to move?”