VALLEY ROUNDUP : Valleywide : State Board Releases Funds for Schools

After a month delay, the State Allocation Board on Wednesday unanimously approved releasing $278 million in state bond funds for the Los Angeles Unified School District to build 48 schools to relieve overcrowding.

The hearing room in the state Capitol was standing-room only with LAUSD Supt. Ruben Zacarias and all seven members of the Los Angeles Board of Education in Sacramento for the 7-0 vote. Veteran board member Julie Korenstein called it “the best thing that’s happened for this district in a long, long time.”

Last month, Assemblyman Scott Wildman (D-Los Angeles), an allocation board member, blocked approval of the money, expressing concern that the district would build another Belmont Learning Complex, the $200-million, environmentally -plagued high school under construction near downtown Los Angeles.

On Tuesday, however, Wildman and other officials signed an agreement supporting the release of class-size reduction funding from Proposition 1A, the largest school bond measure in state history, to LAUSD after educators agreed to stricter construction oversight.

“This assures for the people of Los Angeles that these schools will be built in a timely manner,” Wildman said. In the past, he said, “there’s been a lot of good intentions, but not a lot of product.”

The money will be used to build 12 elementary schools and 36 primary centers, as well as to acquire land to expand playgrounds at 55 campuses.

Approved by voters last November, Proposition 1A provides $6.7 billion for elementary and secondary schools. Of that, about $700 million is earmarked for class-size reduction.

All told, the district plans to build about 100 schools by 2008, when the student population is expected to swell to more than 776,000 from the current 700,000.