Crowding Is on Many Minds as the School Year Starts

Students squeezed into Los Angeles Unified’s swollen campuses for the first day of school Tuesday, as teachers and administrators tackled the dual demands of relieving overcrowded classrooms and raising test scores that are among the lowest in the state.

The lack of space produced some testy moments as parents jockeyed to enroll their children in schools that were full before their doors opened.

Van Nuys High Assistant Principal Thomas Emery stood at the podium in his school’s auditorium at the beginning of the day and issued a blunt warning to parents who had failed to preregister their children in August.

“We have very little space for students. We may or may not be able to accommodate you,” he said as 100 pairs of eyes stared at him in silence. “We may have to send students to other high schools.”

Supt. Roy Romer, who took over the district’s top job in July, said overcrowding and instruction are his two top priorities. But the former Colorado governor must contend with many pressing issues, including negotiating a new contract with the teachers union, implementing a new districtwide reading program and overseeing a broad reorganization that has sliced L.A. Unified into 11 mini-districts.

Elsewhere in the region, schools are reopening this week and confronting many of the same issues. Campuses are having to renovate, or replace, aging buildings, and their teachers are working feverishly to raise test scores amid the state’s tough new focus on school accountability.

But the stresses and strains are most intense in the sprawling Los Angeles district, where enrollment is expected to climb to a record 723,230 students this year, about 12,000 more than last year.

Because of growth, the district took the unpopular step of switching North Hollywood High School to a year-round schedule, making it the 18th high school on such a schedule. The district also will have to bus nearly 23,000 students from schools that have reached their capacity.

‘Long-Term Challenge Here Is Space’

School district construction plans call for adding 65,000 seats over five to six years. Even with the additional space, however, the district will still fall short by at least 15,000 seats, based on enrollment projections, Romer said.

“I’ve got to warn everybody in this district: We’re going to have to do a first-rate job of building,” he said in an interview. “We’re going to have to figure out how to do more. The long-term challenge here is space.”

The tensions raised by crowded schools could be seen Tuesday at Van Nuys High, a school with an enrollment of 3,600 that has bused out students for the last four years.

Teenagers groaned and parents sighed and rolled their eyes as they learned that the oversubscribed campus might be busing students to Birmingham High in Van Nuys and Taft High in Woodland Hills.

“This makes me nervous, and I can’t do anything but sit here,” said Linda Rodriguez, a 14-year-old freshman, as she waited for news in the auditorium. “I don’t know why I might have to go to another school.”

Fellow freshman Crystal Verdugo said the morning had been an emotional roller-coaster. “I don’t like not knowing,” she said while waiting in the auditorium. “I don’t know where I’ll end up. I will have to adjust to so many things.”

Crystal’s mother, Beth Verdugo, hadn’t expected to spend her morning waiting in limbo with her 14-year-old daughter.

“I don’t want her to have to get up at 5 a.m. to catch a bus to school,” said Verdugo, a 1981 Van Nuys High graduate.

The day of frayed nerves ended on an up note, however. After tallying their first-day enrollment figures, Van Nuys administrators announced late in the day that they would be able to accommodate all of the students in the auditorium.

But the principal warned that any additional students arriving today or later this week will probably be bused to other campuses.

Similar dramas played out at dozens of crowded campuses across Los Angeles.

At Thomas Starr King Middle School in Silver Lake, about 50 students who showed up Tuesday were at risk of being bused. The parents wanted an answer to one question: Would their children be allowed to stay?

“Waiting and waiting,” complained Marina Caceres, who arrived with her son Gregory at 6:30 a.m. but soon realized she was going to lose a day’s pay at her job making neckties.

“I called them, and they said it’s not their business if the kids have to be enrolled today,” Caceres said. “For me, this is more important than a day’s pay.”

Uncertainty Over Availability of Seats

At Luther Burbank Middle School in Highland Park, Assistant Principal Charles Collier spent part of his morning meeting individually with students who were enrolling for the first time. It was uncertain whether there would be room for them, because the school already sends out one busload of students to other campuses.

He told them they would have a place at the school until enrollment figures could be tallied, which could take several days.

“Today we want you in classes,” he told a young girl. “If we have space, you can go to school here. If not, you will be bused.”

Putting the enrollment issues aside, the first day of school unfolded smoothly at Burbank and the other campuses.

The Highland Park middle school, which had been teeming with adolescents half an hour before school started, turned serene as the homeroom bell rang and virtually all the students disappeared into classrooms.

Several miles away, in South Los Angeles, McKinley Avenue Elementary was a model of calm--even as administrators scrambled behind the scenes to accommodate more students than they can handle. The school bused out 35 students last year, including 12 kindergartners, and administrators expected much of the same this year.

Still, that uncertainty was overshadowed by the order of the campus.

Fifteen minutes before the morning bell rang, students lined up in neat rows behind their teachers on the playground and waited for the principal’s morning announcements, a daily ritual at the school that went off without a hitch.

The children recited the Pledge of Allegiance. Then Principal Gwendolyn Washington addressed the nearly 1,000 students over a loudspeaker.

“Remember last spring you took that Stanford 9 test?” she asked the students. “Boys and girls, you did the best ever. You are the smartest. Give yourselves a hand. We’re going to make you even smarter this year. Get ready to work hard this year.”

Minutes later, the students retreated quietly with their teachers to their classrooms. First-graders in one room were practicing writing their names and reviewing their times tables. The hallways were quiet.

“It’s controlled chaos,” Sergio Franco, McKinley’s assistant principal, joked. “We’re on top of things.”

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LAUSD Enrollment

Enrollment in the Los Angeles Unified School District is expected to hit another all-time high this year, forcing officials to bus thousands of students from crowded campuses.

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Times staff writer Doug Smith contributed to this story.