1970-1979: SCHOOLS

Claudia Peschiutta

GLENDALE - Bilingual education was an issue in the city long before

the passage of Proposition 227 -- the “English-only” instruction law

approved by voters in 1998.

Though the Glendale Unified School District already had a coordinator

of intercultural education and English-as-a-Second-Language programs on

10 campuses by 1973, the federal government did not think local schools

were doing enough.

In 1976, the district was cited by the federal Office for Civil

Rights, then under the Department of Health, Education and Welfare, for

discriminatory educational practices and faced the possible loss of

federal grant money.

But members of the Glendale Board of Education felt the decision was

based on a lack on information.

“I hope the citizens stand up and shout about this,” said then-board

member Sheldon Baker at a July 1976 meeting.

Despite the angry response, the district did institute recommended

improvements, such as forming a citizens advisory committee on bilingual

education.

While diversity was on the rise in the 1970s, enrollment was falling.

The dramatic drop in students seen by the decade’s end was attributed

mainly to falling birth rates but also to a lack of affordable housing in

the area and the loss of single-family dwellings caused by the extension

of the Foothill (210) Freeway.

The decline was hardest felt in La Crescenta, where by 1979,

enrollment at Lowell and Montrose elementary schools was down to about

200 students at each campus. The two schools were closed later that year.

The school board was also considering closing Field, Cerritos and

Dunsmore elementary schools and closely watching enrollments at Rosemont

and Clark junior high schools.

Though the district faced some tough issues in the 1970s, Michele

Hunt, now 31, was attending R.D. White Elementary School at the time and

her mind was on other things -- such as four-wheeled roller skates, Holly

Hobbie, Princess Leia braids and “Hardy Boy” hunk Shaun Cassidy.

Looking at the school, where she currently teaches first grade, Hunt

said the student population is much more diverse now than it was in the

late 1970s, when there were only a handful of minority students in her

class.

Following a state Board of Education mandate, a citizens’ committee

approved in November 1979 a four-year plan to reduce ethnic and racial

segregation in Glendale schools.

The plan called for the district to collect statistics on the makeup

of the student body of each school and determine whether the needs of

minority students were being met.