New Middle, High Schools Proposed for South Gate

A month after the Los Angeles Board of Education abandoned a much-needed school construction project for South Gate, the district’s chief operating officer unveiled plans Wednesday for a new middle school and high school to ease classroom overcrowding in the city.

Howard Miller’s plans, drafted by a Los Angeles real estate consultant, also call for the construction of three primary centers and a permanent location for an elementary school that has been operating in a city park for 12 years.

The plan is intended to end the Los Angeles Unified School District’s need to bus 431 South Gate students to other schools each year and to eliminate the use of 40 portable classrooms citywide.

The projects require approval by the Board of Education. No date for a board vote has been set.

The rejected South Gate project and the Belmont Learning Complex fiasco have become symbols of the district’s incompetence in the face of severe overcrowding. They also played a major role in last fall’s ouster of Supt. Ruben Zacarias and key members of his administration.

Miller presented his plan at a meeting organized by Rep. Lucille Roybal-Allard (D-Los Angeles) and attended by about 400 South Gate parents, many of whom have lost patience because of broken promises of new facilities.

But after the presentation, about half the audience stood to applaud and began chanting “Si se puede,” “Yes, we can.”

Others were skeptical.

Angelica Martinez, the mother of three school-age children, asked Miller for a guarantee that his plan will be implemented.

“We can’t rely on words that will just blow away with the breeze,” she said.

Miller responded that “We will make you this promise: We will work as fast as we can, and we will keep you informed as we go along.”

Miller’s plan, drafted by Rick Rodriguez, who has been named a senior facilities administrator for the district, calls for the construction of a new high school and a middle school on 40 acres near Alameda Street and Tweedy Boulevard, the former site of a General Motors assembly plant. Rodriguez said a preliminary study shows that the site has no soil contamination problems. Further studies are expected.

The high school will hold about 3,500 students and the middle school will accommodate 2,100, Rodriguez said.

South Gate parents have been particularly upset with the school district because it has yet to build a permanent replacement for Tweedy Elementary, which was relocated to a city park in 1987 because of health concerns involving nearby industrial sites.

A permit to allow the school to take up park space expires this year, but area lawmakers plan to seek an extension.

Rodriguez said he is negotiating the purchase of land near Tweedy Elementary for a replacement site. The school now serves about 900 students. He said he is also investigating possible locations for three primary centers for kindergarten through third grade, each of which will have about 400 students.

The new schools will be paid for primarily through school construction bonds. Rodriguez said they can be built in three to five years, depending on the negotiations for the land sales.

Only a few years ago, frustrated South Gate parents were looking forward to the construction of a new high school and an elementary school on a 40-acre parcel that had been used for years by foundries, plating shops and automotive facilities.

But the board, stung by the discovery of highly contaminated soil at the site of the $200-million Belmont Learning Complex, rejected the South Gate project in January because of fears that the site was contaminated.

The cost of a soil cleanup plan was estimated at $20 million.

Instead of the larger project, the board recommended building several smaller primary centers for kindergarten through third grade. The board suggested that existing elementary schools could be converted into schools serving grades four to eight, freeing South Gate Middle School to be converted into a high school by 2006.

But South Gate parents rejected those plans, saying some of the schools could not be converted.

South Gate parents, angry over crowded conditions, have formed a committee, called United Parents of South Gate for New Schools, to demand action from the district.

Parents have complained for years that students who are bused leave for their distant schools at 6 a.m. and return home at 5 p.m.

South Gate High School, which was built for 1,700 students, is used by 4,600 students a day. Overcrowding there prompted 85 teachers to picket in front of the school three years ago, warning parents that the conditions were eroding student achievement.

Such problems also have prodded the city of South Gate to join a coalition of cities in southeast Los Angeles County that are considering seceding from the Los Angeles Unified School District.