Year-Round Is Simply Realistic

That the Los Angeles Unified School District needs to build more schools is a point against which few people would argue. But overcrowding, throughout the district and especially at North Hollywood High School, needs to be reduced now.

The most helpful, realistic option for achieving that goal at North Hollywood is the controversial one announced recently by LAUSD Supt. Ramon C. Cortines: year-round scheduling, beginning in July.

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I have been an LAUSD teacher for almost 19 years, the last 3 1/2 at North Hollywood, and never have I had so many classes with 40 or more students as in the last three years. Many teachers have to “travel,” or change classrooms, as many as four times a day, sometimes all the way across campus. They sacrifice not only valuable instructional time but also time for questions and time to talk with students who need a little personal attention. While they could be teaching, they are loading up a cart or stuffing a book bag with materials for the next class. Long gone are the days of having a room in which to grade papers or simply to plan.

Although most parents do not want year-round scheduling--they dislike the non-summer breaks--the movement to keep the traditional calendar at North Hollywood was led by parents of students in the highly gifted magnet.

Four years ago, that magnet’s parents resisted conversion to year-round scheduling and stood by as class size in the regular school spilled over to 40 or more, not as the exception but on a regular basis. Now North Hollywood, which has about 3,500 students, is well over the Rodriguez Consent Decree limit of 3,000. In addition, hundreds of neighborhood students are bused to distant campuses.

The highly gifted magnet parent group complains that with year-round scheduling, there won’t be as many course offerings, especially for advanced placement classes. They say students will forget what they have learned while off-track.

But with careful programming and teacher scheduling, course offerings can be rich and varied. Students in high school--about ages 14 through 18--are at the peak of many cognitive skills. If they are taught at a deep level and are taught to relate what they learn to existing cognitive structures, they should have no real problems remembering. In addition, intersessions, or classes between terms, are available, even at other campuses. Unlike summer school, these can be attended before a term is over and could prevent failure.

Other LAUSD high schools function very well on year-round schedules. North Hollywood can too.

The Rodriguez Consent Decree of 1992 came into existence to remedy the inequities experienced by inner-city schools where the density of students, the ratio of students to teachers and to playground space, and the proportion of emergency credentialed teachers were all high. Those inequities bred alienation and inferior education.

The insistence on retaining a traditional calendar, in the face of continued, severe overcrowding, is unrealistic and will breed the same evils it hopes to avoid. Without year-round scheduling, in the next few years while new schools are built, we will have more concrete and bungalows where once there were athletic fields, agricultural areas, trees and grassy plots.

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Our situation is not unlike that of Juana and Kino in John Steinbeck’s “The Pearl.” Understandably wanting a better life for their child, Coyotito, they refuse to give up their newfound pearl. But in doing so, they lose their precious child.

Yes, we need to reform our schools. We need to build more schools and we need to attract and keep qualified teachers. But what price are we willing to pay to keep a traditional calendar?

Flexibility and ingenuity can make a year-round school a wise and workable solution. It’s time now to start thinking of making it work in July.

Kathleen Trinity, a resident of Granada Hills, teaches English at North Hollywood High School.