Parents Welcome New School Site as Officials Grow Closer to a Deal

In sharp contrast to community meetings for many other proposed school sites, most of the 150 parents, teachers and neighbors meeting at Polytechnic High School auditorium Monday night warmly supported news of a senior high school planned for the multistory Anthony Office Building nearby.

“One promise we were not going to break to this community is, we were not going to wait until a new high school was built to relieve the overcrowding of Poly High School,” Los Angeles Board of Education member Caprice Young told the crowd. “We are working to relieve this situation immediately. And even immediately is not soon enough.”

Those who turned out for the meeting--many with young children in tow--frequently interrupted the presentations of the panel of Los Angeles Unified School District officials with spontaneous and enthusiastic applause. Even so, several residents and parents asked what the school district intended to do to make sure students don’t get sick as a result of nearby landfills.

“What measures will you be taking with regard to the concerns about methane gases?” asked Benny Bernal, a Pacoima resident and community activist.

Angelo Bellomo, the school district’s interim director of environmental health and safety, assured him that if the city of Los Angeles properly manages its landfill, no methane gas will escape. He said the school district plans to make sure that happens.

The Anthony Office Building, at 8501 Arleta Ave. in Sun Valley, is owned by the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power. It is one of 15 sites in the city--and five in the San Fernando Valley--that the LAUSD has identified for possible new high schools.

The Anthony Building is the only site on the district’s list that could be converted to classrooms as soon as the next school year.

School officials say they need to add space for nearly 11,000 more Valley students in the next seven years. The classroom shortage is predicted to be most acute in the East Valley, where the Anthony Building is located.

The purchase deal was struck by the top executives of both agencies involved--schools Supt. Roy Romer and DWP General Manager S. David Freeman.

At a recent tour of the site, Freeman and Romer agreed that the district would buy the four-story building at Roscoe Boulevard and Arleta Avenue and lease a portion of it back to the DWP, which will maintain operations on the lower floors.

Negotiations on terms are concluding, said Rod Hamilton, a senior facilities executive for the school district. “We are close to a definitive agreement,” Hamilton said Monday. “We haven’t found another site like this in the city, and we have been looking. This site provides classrooms for students much faster than any alternative we have found yet. If one can get a school up in a year, rather than four or five years, that’s a kid’s entire high school education.”

The school district hopes to initially occupy all of the fourth floor and part of the third floor, Hamilton said, providing seats for about 1,100 students on a traditional calendar, or 1,500 if the campus is open year-round.

The school would be an academy program attached to Polytechnic. Students will be able to do internships with DWP staff.

Built in 1990, the Anthony Office Building sustained little damage during the 1994 Northridge earthquake. Weak joints were strengthened after the temblor.

The school district is in the process of doing state- and district-mandated environmental checks of the property.

Los Angeles City Councilman Alex Padilla, whose 7th District includes Sun Valley, said there is virtually no community opposition to the site. He said the additional classrooms would bring desperately needed relief to some of the most overcrowded schools in the city.

“What very few people realize is that No. 2 in the region for overcrowded schools is the east San Fernando Valley,” Padilla said. “This is at the center of the impacted area. I can’t emphasize enough the urgency of adding as many seats as possible as soon as possible here.”

Among the few present who raised questions about the plan was Christine Clark, principal of Poly High. She begged the district not to create a system of haves and have-nots between Poly High and the school proposed for the more modern Anthony Office Building.

“I don’t want one group to have a beautiful facility with water running down the front and a group here in a school that needs paint,” she said, echoing the sentiments of at least one parent. “We want equity.”