Lack of Classrooms a Looming Crisis for L.A. Unified

Even if every Los Angeles high school converts to a year-round schedule and the district completes nearly $2 billion in new construction, there still won’t be enough seats for every high school student, school officials are warning.

In the direst assessment yet of the district’s facilities crisis, a report to be delivered to the Board of Education on Tuesday projects a shortfall of 2,000 to 5,000 seats in a few years even under the most optimistic scenario.

“In the absolute worst case, if we do not build any high schools because of community opposition, there will be about 20,000 new high school students beginning in 2006 and 2007 that literally will have no place to go to school,” said Chief Operating Officer Howard Miller. “I don’t believe any decent community wants that.”

The projections are based on the assumption that the district will not improve its current graduation rate of less than 50%. If the district succeeds in its goal of keeping more students in school until they graduate, the shortfall will be worse.

Miller said he hopes the numbers will jar the public into understanding the financial and social sacrifices that must be borne to forestall a civic tragedy. Parents must accept the conversion of their traditional schools to year-round, property owners must tolerate new schools near their homes, and taxpayers must be willing to shell out the funds, he said.

“People have to realize these are not local issues anymore,” Miller said. “To the extent schools are not built in one part of the city, it impacts how fast schools have to go year-round in other areas.”

Taking into account the limits of the district’s construction budget, the report strikes out more than half of about 125 new schools identified in the current master plan.

It leaves intact plans for 13 new high schools ranging in capacity from fewer than 1,000 to more than 4,000. Every one of the new high schools would have to open on a year-round schedule and remain so for years into the future, Miller said.

The plan also includes eight middle schools, 19 elementary schools and 18 primary centers for kindergarten through third grade.

The new facilities would provide about 57,400 seats, enough to accommodate all new enrollment in the elementary and middle school grades. Elementary enrollment is projected to peak this year, and middle school in 2003. High school enrollment is projected to continue growing until 2007.

Bungalows, which already sprawl across many campuses, would no longer be used as the primary source of new classrooms. In some cases, existing portables would be removed and replaced with permanent multistory buildings.

Monroe High School in Sepulveda, for example, would give up portables to make room for a second high school on the large campus. Nearby Hughes Middle School would be borrowed as a high school during the conversion.

Miller said the district is still studying other large campuses to see if that strategy would work elsewhere.

The total cost of $1.8 billion to $2 billion is more than twice the district’s current construction budget. Even a backup plan for $1.2 billion exceeds the district’s resources.

About $871 million remains of the funds set aside for new schools from the 1997 Proposition BB construction bond measure.

“When we tried to do it from $871 [million], it was literally impossible to meet the most minimal needs,” Miller said.

Much of the district’s hopes now rest on the success of a lawsuit filed by the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund and other Los Angeles civic and civil rights organizations. The suit challenges the way the state has distributed money from a 1998 statewide school construction bond issue.

The district will have lost its claim to nearly $1 billion in state funds if, as expected, it is unable to prepare applications by a June 30 deadline.

A hearing on the lawsuit is scheduled June 20.

Aside from money, the district faces huge obstacles in obtaining environmental clearances and community acceptance for most potential schools.

Already, two high school projects--the Belmont Learning Complex near downtown and a South Gate site purchased for $40 million--have been shelved because of environmental concerns. Most readily available land contains contamination from former uses.

The few properties with acceptable environmental conditions often run into political opposition.

Of the three sites listed in the plan as replacements for Belmont, only the current district headquarters in downtown has yet to cause an outcry. Proposals to use a parking lot at Dodger Stadium and the former Ambassador Hotel on Wilshire Boulevard have met opposition from neighborhood and business groups.

“We cannot continue to put every value above education,” Miller said. “We are not in a situation where a slight increase in traffic is a reason not to build a new school.”