Year-Round School

I am impressed at what the students attending North Hollywood High have done (“Students Oppose Year-Round School Plan,” April 4). They not only expressed their feelings but they did it in a peaceful manner. They have good reasons not to go year-around, and the students’ voices should be heard.

TAMER MINA

Sherman Oaks

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I find that the most damnable aspect of a year-round schedule is its very existence (“New N. Hollywood High Schedule Incites Anger,” April 8). The Los Angeles Unified School District’s failure to respond to the rapidly expanding number of students in Los Angeles is pathetically obvious, and the administration has done little, if anything, to ease the overcrowding. Supt. Ramon C. Cortines has explained that other areas must receive priority in the building of new classrooms, and I understand his predicament. What I also understand is the overwhelming need not to cope with the problem of overcrowding, but to eliminate it altogether. Year-round only worsens a bad situation and is not the answer to our schools’ problems.

DANIEL J. LEE

Granada Hills

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The last events concerning North Hollywood High School have proven once more what we have known for a while: In Los Angeles, few other than parents care about education. LAUSD definitely does not!

LAUSD was handed a viable plan from parents to prevent North Hollywood High from going year-round. What is LAUSD doing? Ruining the school and ignoring the parents and students’ needs, wishes and responsible alternative plans.

Even the media coverage for the problem is almost nonexistent. This is not a [San Fernando] Valley problem: This problem exists for every one of the more than 700,000 students in LAUSD. But the only child who gets to the front page of The Times or to the TV news is Elian Gonzalez. What about Los Angeles’ children?

RONIT WEISS

Valley Village

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I have followed this story with interest but am puzzled as to why the students of the highly gifted magnet should feel so threatened by going on a Concept 6 schedule. Assuming that they get track A (probably a fair deal if they do need to attend summer programs), they would lose two weeks break over the summer. In exchange, they would get a winter break to pursue independent research. At this level the very brightest students are working largely on independent projects anyway. Meanwhile they would have many opportunities to widen their life experience over the winter break--volunteer work maybe. My concern is far more with the numerous students who are achieving in the lower percentiles who need the face-to-face contact with their teachers. As with the year-round schools elsewhere in the district, this group of students and their parents are largely silent.

ROSE LEIBOWITZ

Sherman Oaks

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Now is a terrible time to be a student in the LAUSD. Student population goes up while teacher population remains the same. Homeowners feel that property taxes are more important than Reading by 9. The Los Angeles school board can’t even come up with a good excuse to explain its mistakes. Here in North Hollywood High we are told that, because there is no more space, 3,500 students must sacrifice their education so that 500 can be accommodated. And we’re disappointed at Los Angeles’ Stanford 9 scores?

I am angry at the fact that two of the district’s best magnet programs will be destroyed because schools are not being built. And I am saddened at the fact that this is happening districtwide.

FREDY GONZALEZ

Los Angeles

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I challenge Cortines and the rest of the LAUSD bureaucracy to come to my school and see, firsthand, the effects of their inefficiency and obstinacy. I challenge them to come down to my school and make this twisted parody of a solution seem fair to my friends in the school jazz band, who might not be able to participate because of the fractured schedules year-round schooling entails. I challenge them to explain to my peers who won’t be lucky enough to get on A track why they can’t participate in sports or debate societies or Academic Decathlon. I challenge them to explain to C-track students, who would have a week’s vacation this year before going back to school, why they can’t have summer jobs or go to college classes. I challenge them to explain their math to me, which holds that an extra five minutes of class time per subject, per day, will somehow compensate for the loss of 2 1/2 weeks of teaching time. I challenge them to come to my school and explain to my peers why they have failed us so miserably.

But maybe, if they came down to my school and actually listened to my peers and me, instead of ignoring us, we could work out a solution that doesn’t necessitate quotation marks around it.

JEFF M. TAN

Los Angeles