Sword Over a Stellar School

North Hollywood High School is one of the most spectacular success stories of the Los Angeles Unified School District. Home to the prestigious highly gifted and zoology magnet programs, the school ranks as one of the top 30 campuses in the nation.

So what is the district considering doing? Finding a way to duplicate it? No. The district is actually considering a plan that is likely to kill the success of the school.

North Hollywood is overcrowded. The LAUSD wants to solve the problem by placing the school on a year-round schedule. It should instead consider building on a plan by North Hollywood High School parents, teachers and principal John Hyland that, if successful, could be a model for other overcrowded schools.

Hyland wants to build new classrooms and, most intriguingly, expand his school’s “academies,” specialized education programs taught off site or as schools within a school. He sees the plan as not merely accommodating more bodies but renewing teachers’ and students’ enthusiasm and boosting achievement.

Hyland reluctantly agrees with the school board on the need to go year-round, but he suggests that it be for only two or three years, until his plan can be put in place. But many parents adamantly resist, fearing that once year-round the school would never go back.

Looking at numbers alone, the year-round option seems inevitable. With 3,500 students crammed onto the campus, North Hollywood already sends around 480 students to other San Fernando Valley schools.

Under a policy approved in 1998, high schools that send more than 250 local students to other district campuses must switch to year-round schedules. By dividing North Hollywood into three tracks, with two in session and one on vacation at any given time, such a schedule would accommodate 4,350 students, 850 more than can now be taught.

Many residents--some of whom moved to the neighborhood to be within the school’s boundaries--have been deprived of the opportunity to attend the school. And parents elsewhere have protested year-round schedules at their schools to no avail. It seems hardly fair to give North Hollywood a reprieve.

Case closed? Not quite.

Aside from the usual complaints of vacations and summer jobs disrupted, North Hollywood parents argue that a year-round schedule would rob students of the chance to study at college-based summer academies. The disruption could cause parents to pull their kids out, furthering the middle class’ abandonment of public education in Los Angeles.

It is beyond unfair--it is stupid--to undermine a school that attracts students citywide and is held as a national model. If even some of Hyland’s plan, such as the off-site academies, can be fast-tracked, interim Supt. Ramon C. Cortines should recommend Friday that the school board do all it can to accelerate the process and preserve one of the district’s gems.