Cheers for New High School

Because the Los Angeles Unified School District fails in so many arenas, it can be hard to recognize success. But the decision to use the site of district headquarters, downtown near Temple and Grand, for a new high school should benefit students, neighbors and taxpayers. The facility would accommodate 2,300 youngsters.

At least some of the students who are bused to distant locations although they live near the old, overcrowded Belmont High School could walk to the new school, less than two miles from the old campus. The savings stack up because the district need not buy land or take houses and businesses by eminent domain in one of the city’s densest neighborhoods. The land saving alone, $26 million, could be spent to acquire still another site.

No fears of chemical contamination shadow the site, which has passed state scrutiny. And even if the scandal-ridden and uncompleted Belmont Learning Complex nearby were cleared for completion, there would be plenty students to fill both schools.

Before ground can be broken, district employees must move out of the aging administrative buildings, which are to be demolished. The school board approved, 6 to 1, a plan to buy an office building at 333 S. Beaudry, not far from the current site.

The lone dissenter on the school board, David Tokofsky, asks whether the district could have gotten a better deal, a legitimate question in light of the Belmont Learning Complex fiasco. Tokofsky also opposes moving district headquarters to a building that probably has too much space. But would he have students whose families were promised a new school 30 years ago wait even longer?

Even its supporters acknowledge that the Beaudry office building is not beautiful, but they believe it will serve its purpose at a reasonable price and within a reasonable time. If there is too much space as the district decentralizes, board President Caprice Young has suggested, the headquarters could also house a charter school, be used for teacher training or be partly sublet.

The Belmont scandal certainly should make the board cautious--but not paralyzed--about its property deals. If the district’s new professional property manager sees the office building purchase as the right deal, and the critics can be sensibly answered, the board should move there and get started on the new high school.