Speeding Up New Schools

The Los Angeles Unified School District desperately needs more classrooms. The system is growing by 17,000 students a year. The statewide school population is exploding by 100,000 students a year. Overcrowding is a common problem, and 354 districts need new schools.

These school districts can speed new school construction by as much as 18 months if they can borrow against lottery receipts earmarked for instructional extras like computers, mobile science labs and special music, arts and sports classes. But the California Legislature must approve.

Districts cannot spend lottery money--34% of all receipts, $497 million so far this year--on school construction or land acquisition. The prohibitions generally make sense. The extra money is intended to improve schools, not to relieve the state or local districts of primary responsibilities.

Legislation sponsored by Assemblywoman Maxine Waters (D-Los Angeles) would change the rules slightly. AB 3470 would allow overcrowded districts to borrow against the lottery money, but the state would repay the loan and remain responsible for new construction. Scheduled today before the Senate Committee on Governmental Organization, the measure is an idea worth trying.

The average school takes three to five years to build after school board approval. School districts must proceed through several phases to get state construction money. This bill would short-cut that process.

Its backers include Bill Honig, state superintendent of public instruction; the California Parent-Teachers Assn.; the California Assn. of School Boards, and, with some reservations, the United Teachers of Los Angeles.

The Los Angeles Unified School District is also urging passage. School officials expect a crush of 82,000 additional students by 1990. The district anticipates $270 million in lottery receipts over the next three years--enough money to build 27 elementary schools for 27,000 children.

New schools are also needed in Long Beach in Los Angeles County; in the Capistrano, Saddleback Valley, Santa Ana and Irvine districts in Orange County; in the Moreno Valley in Riverside County, and in the northern and coastal sections and other high-growth districts in San Diego County.

The lottery won’t solve the overcrowding crisis or anything else, but allowing school districts to borrow against the jackpot can speed up school construction.