District OKs Downtown Arts School

Pushing aside concerns about the costs of a new performing and visual arts high school, the Los Angeles Board of Education approved plans Tuesday for the $208-million downtown campus.

With Tuesday’s 5-1 vote, the board approved a nearly $172-million construction contract for the high school. Already, more than $35 million has been spent to prepare the site across from the Hollywood Freeway.

“This is great,” board President Marlene Canter said. “We want to be one of the best urban school districts in the country. To do that, you need to stretch the envelope for the kids and offer them things that they have never been offered before.”

Parents and members of the arts community filled the board chambers to urge members to approve the project.

The vote, however, did not come easily.

Board members debated for nearly three hours, and all of them expressed concern over the school’s price, which has escalated dramatically in recent years as material and labor costs have skyrocketed.

The cost is now twice what board members had expected to pay, and about double that of a typical high school.

Plans for the elaborately designed school, on the site of the former district headquarters, call for 1,700 to 2,000 students to study in seven major buildings, including a 950-seat theater, music rehearsal rooms and art studios.

Board members Mike Lansing and David Tokofsky, who had threatened to vote against the school, succeeded in getting their colleagues to agree to a number of changes.

Board member Marguerite Poindexter LaMotte voted against the school.

When it opens, the school will have at least 500 students from across the sprawling Los Angeles Unified School District.

Officials had initially intended to allow students from outside the downtown area to attend only after enough new schools had been built to relieve overcrowding. In addition, the board directed Supt. Roy Romer to draw up plans that would defer construction of a small, nearby high school in order to divert $35 million to the arts campus.

Board members also reiterated their call for the city and private organizations to help raise funds for the school.

As part of the board amendment, members said they expect Discovering the Arts -- a nonprofit organization formed to raise money for the school -- to collect $7 million more than the amount already pledged.

Also Tuesday, the board approved plans to allow eight charter schools to open in the area around Jefferson High School, one of the city’s lowest performing schools.

Charter schools are publicly funded but independently run campuses that are free to try innovative teaching techniques.

Six of the schools will be run by Green Dot Public Schools, which operates several other successful charter schools in the city.

The other two were awarded to the Alliance for College-Ready Public Schools, which also won approval to open three schools in other areas of the city.

All of the charters were approved for three years.

Board members directed Romer to come back in two weeks with a plan to provide space on district-owned land for some of the new charter schools.

The decision came after months of negotiations between the district and Green Dot’s founder Steve Barr over how best to revamp Jefferson.

Romer has said he supports charter schools but resisted calls by Barr for the district to relinquish control of the school.

“I think that kids can vote with their feet, and if they find a better program, then that’s what they should do,” Romer said.