Busing Curbs, Bungalows : $12.7 Million Aimed at Crowded Schools

Grappling with ways to reduce crowding without putting more pupils on year-round schedules, Los Angeles school officials on Friday unveiled a $12.7-million proposal to add 202 portable classrooms, including at least 14 in the San Fernando Valley.

In addition, The Times has learned, district staff members are recommending that the Board of Education limit the numbers of some bused minority students at three Valley high schools, shifting the students to Westside and other Valley campuses.

Both proposals are expected to be considered at the board’s regular meeting Monday afternoon.

Making Room for More Students

The proposals represent the first of what is expected to be an annual offering of plans as the district tries to accommodate an expected increase of 70,000 in enrollment by 1990.

This fall, 13,300 new students are expected, with another 14,000 projected for the fall of 1986.

Santiago Jackson, administrator of the district’s Overcrowded Schools Task Force, said the plan to use the portable classrooms, or bungalows, as a way to handle 4,000 of the additional students would enable the district to avoid putting more schools on year-round schedules.

However, Jackson added, the added classroom space “does not dismiss the possibility” that some of the schools may have to go on a year-round program, which often has proved controversial, in 1986.

Plan to Limit Busing

The district now has 94 year-round schools, including 11 elementary schools in the Valley. Some of the schools slated for bungalows already are on year-round sessions and would not go back to a September-June school year.

Besides the bungalows, district plans include proposals to limit enrollment at high schools by reducing the numbers of some bused minority students.

Grant and Van Nuys high schools, both in Van Nuys, and Taft High School in Woodland Hills are the three Valley schools where enrollment of some bused students may be limited.

According to fall enrollment figures, Grant was the fifth largest high school in the district, with 3,372 students. The enrollment at Van Nuys High, which also houses a math/science magnet school and performing arts magnet school, was 2,195. Taft, the sixth largest high school, had 3,366 students.

Limit to Students

Valley high schools that may have space to accommodate the students who would be shifted are Granada Hills, Monroe in Sepulveda, El Camino Real in Woodland Hills and Canoga Park.

The proposals for Grant and Van Nuys high schools call for a limit on the number of students who attend the schools under the Capacity Adjustment Program, a tool the district uses to limit enrollment at crowded schools, which are heavily minority. Limits also would be imposed on students attending Grant under the the Satellite Zone Program, a method used in the district’s complicated integration plan.

The proposals would affect only incoming students; those already enrolled would not be asked to transfer, said Barry Mostovoy, administrative consultant for the district’s school operations division.

Parents of students who would be affected by the proposals would receive letters outlining options for school attendance. Students in the Capacity Adjustment Program program would get a choice of going to their home schools if there were room, attending another Valley or Westside school included in the program, applying to a specialized magnet school or applying to another, voluntary, busing program, known as Permit with Transportation.

Shift of Potential Students

Satellite Zone Program students would have all of the above options except that of attending their home schools because of the district’s integration deadlines.

Mostovoy said that about 150 potential Van Nuys High School students may be directed to other schools. The loss of the students should not reduce the number of teachers at the school, he added.

However, Grant High School would be likely to lose some teachers, he added. Mostovoy would not reveal the number of students who would be sent to other schools, saying only that it would be greater than 150 but fewer than the 700 rumored in recent weeks.

Wayne Johnson, president of United Teachers of Los Angeles, the largest teachers’ union in the district, said that teachers have two options at schools where enrollment limitations require staff reductions.

“Teachers can follow the students to the new school, or they can remain at the old school and take their chances,” Johnson said. “They might lose their job or be transferred to another school. All staff reductions are made on a seniority basis.”

There are several reasons Valley schools, which just five years ago had surplus classroom space, are reaching capacity, district officials say. Many students who were removed from the Los Angeles school system during the three years of now-ended court-ordered busing are returning to public schools. Six Valley high schools now house grades 9-12 instead of the district’s traditional 10-12 high school system. The four-year high school was established last fall as a way to increase students at then-underenrolled schools.

Further, elementary-school enrollment, especially in kindergarten and first grade, has grown rapidly as the first children of the latest “baby boom” enter the school system. Also, fast-growing Asian and Latino immigrant communities in the East Valley have put a strain on classroom space.

Ethnic Balance

The district must be especially careful in designing and implementing enrollment policies because Grant, Van Nuys and Taft high schools are all part of the district’s voluntary integration program. Although exact ethnic and racial ratios have never been mandated by the courts, the school district has instituted a “60/40” policy for schools in the voluntary program. The courts informally have approved this policy.

Under the 60/40 policy, no receiver school in the voluntary program is to have an enrollment of more than 60% white or minority students, or less than 40% white or minority students.

Because of the changing ethnic makeup of the neighborhoods around Grant and Van Nuys high schools, a higher percentage of the resident students attending the schools are from minorities. In addition, Van Nuys High’s two magnet schools give it one of the highest minority-to-white (56-44) student ratios among Valley schools participating in the voluntary desegregation program.

District officials say that the growing minority population in neighborhoods surrounding Grant and Van Nuys, combined with the Van Nuys High magnet programs, have somewhat reduced the two schools’ need for large numbers of bused minorities to meet the 60/40 policy.

14 Valley elementary schools may get bungalows to relieve crowding: Arminta Street................North Hollywood

Broadus...............................Pacoima

Coldwater Canyon Avenue.......North Hollywood

Dyer Street............................Sylmar

Gledhill Street.....................Sepulveda

Hazeltine Avenue.....................Van Nuys

Kittridge Street.....................Van Nuys

Lankershim....................North Hollywood

Liggett.........................Panorama City

Sharp Avenue..........................Pacoima

Strathern Street..............North Hollywood

Sylmar.................................Sylmar

Valerio.......................Street Van Nuys

Vinedale...........................Sun ValleyEB