Schools Focus on Boosting Scores, Easing Space Crunch

Building up test scores and finding space for thousands of new students headed the education agenda for the San Fernando and Santa Clarita valleys in 2000, two issues that promise to dominate public school decisions in the coming year.

On the higher education front, local colleges and universities developed plans to raise their transfer and graduation rates as campuses adjusted curricula to meet the needs of an increasingly diverse student population.

In the Los Angeles Unified School District, new Supt. Roy Romer inherited battles against surging enrollment and slumping academic performance. Three of 11 mini-districts created in 2000 to bring administrative accountability closer to the local level are based in the San Fernando Valley.

Two-thirds of the district’s 791 schools raised their scores on the Academic Performance Index enough to qualify for cash rewards from the state. Teachers districtwide said they used Stanford 9 exam results to identify students’ weaknesses and developed studies to strengthen them. It was the first year that cash incentives were tied to results on the statewide test.

The district’s ambitious new policy to end social promotion proved less than successful when school board members learned that only a fraction of failing second- and eighth-graders were held back. Critics, such as school board member David Tokofsky, said the policy should be restructured to minimize teacher discretion, which they say undermines the effort.

A year-round schedule was introduced at overcrowded North Hollywood High School, which saw its enrollment climb from 3,500 in 1999-2000 to nearly 3,900 this year with an expected peak next July at 4,500 students.

Most other high schools in the district will move to year-round calendars in the next few years as district enrollment--now about 722,000--climbs to a projected 776,000 in 2006, officials said. But parents, students and even teachers say multitrack schedules disrupt families and hurt academics.

The LAUSD made headway in 2000 on building more campuses, especially in the eastern and central Valley, breaking ground on a new elementary school in Van Nuys and reaching agreement to buy a multistory building from the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power at Roscoe Boulevard and Arleta Avenue for an academy program associated with Polytechnic High School in Sun Valley.

Construction on another school may begin in 2001 on the Cal State Northridge campus, and the district is nearing a deal on a former Carnation food research center site at Van Nuys Boulevard and Lanark Street. The district also is considering two more locations for new schools--the former Gemco site at Van Nuys Boulevard and Beachy Avenue and a parcel at Chandler and Lankershim boulevards in North Hollywood.

The problem of overcrowding reached into the the Valley’s outlying communities, as well. Santa Clarita voters narrowly rejected a $52-million bond in April that would have paid for four new schools in the William S. Hart Union High School District.

Bond supporters said they would make another run at the proposal in 2001. In the meantime, high school students in Los Angeles County’s fastest-growing city go to school as early as 6:40 in the morning and stay as late as 8 at night taking classes at the local community college to alleviate the cramped conditions. One high school has a proposal to teach some classes online instead of in the classroom.

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Burbank Unified School District officials are preparing to ask the state for construction funds for the first time to build two new high schools. The district has already expanded three elementary schools with $2 million from the city redevelopment agency.

Student performance and campus overpopulation also confronted local colleges and universities. Community colleges made plans in 2000 to raise their transfer and graduation rates following a California Postsecondary Education Commission report indicating the number of community college students transferring to the University of California had dropped 7% since 1993-94 and transfers to Cal State universities declined by 7.6% since 1995-96.

Adriana Barrera, the new president of Mission College in Sylmar, introduced a community service requirement designed to engage students with marginal interest in school and encourage them to go on to four-year universities and colleges. The report rated Mission among the bottom 14 of the state’s 107 community colleges in transfers.

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Farther north, officials with the Antelope Valley Community College District said they will continue to pursue financing for a new campus in Palmdale after the state denied its request for $40 million.

At Cal State Northridge, new President Jolene Koester said 2001 should determine whether her initiatives for increasing graduation rates are working. A committee will poll students on what courses they would like to see offered and make recommendations to campus officials based on the input.

Like its K-12 counterparts, the campus will have to adjust to a growing enrollment, which is expected to reach more than 30,000 in the next decade. Campus officials plan to offer a full complement of classes year-round to accommodate the bulging student population.

The coming year may finally bring post-earthquake reconstruction to a close; the 1994 Northridge quake left much of the campus in shambles. CSUN reopened its Oviatt Library earlier this year, and the remaining major projects--a technology building and a media center--should be completed in 2001, officials said.

The three Valley campuses in the Los Angeles Community College District stand to gain about $442 million if voters approve a $1.2-billon bond proposal in April. The money would be used at Mission College, Valley College in Valley Glen and Pierce College in Woodland Hills for new technology centers, parking lots and other projects.

The bond campaigns may be aided by a state law approved by voters in November that allows school bonds to be approved and property taxes to be raised on a 55% majority vote instead of the two-thirds majority previously required.