PLACENTIA : Board Studies Relief for Crowded Schools

In an effort to deal with rapidly growing student enrollment, the Placentia Unifed School District is examining three proposals for middle and elementary schools.

The district, which has been growing at a rate of about 600 students per year, has an overcrowding problem at two elementary schools, Woodsboro and Travis Ranch. In addition, the construction of more than 5,000 new homes in the area over the next several years will bring more students at all grade levels, Superintendent James O. Fleming said.

“The growth has primarily been in Yorba Linda, but it will start in Placentia soon,” Fleming said.

The first proposal is to open certain schools year-round. Under this proposal, the Travis Ranch, Rio Vista and Fairmont elementary schools would operate year-round between 1991 and 1994, Fleming said. And when Bryant Ranch School opens in the fall of 1991, it might also operate all year.

A second scenario involves redrawing school boundaries to distribute students more evenly among the district’s schools. Busing would be used to transport some children from areas where schools are more congested.

Also under this plan, additional, temporary classrooms would be added where needed and an additional elementary school might be built in east Yorba Linda.

In the third plan, seventh- and eighth-graders at Travis Ranch would be transferred to Yorba Linda Middle School, and Travis Ranch would take on more K-6 students.

Meanwhile, Yorba Linda Middle, which now serves grades six through eight, would be altered to handle only seventh- and eighth-graders. Sixth-graders would remain in the three elementary schools that now feed into Yorba Linda Middle.

District officials acknowledge that there has been community concern over the proposed changes. At a public hearing Monday night, 45 people presented their opinions to the school board.

Board member Barbara Williams said the consensus appeared to be: “We’re happy with what we have. Don’t change it.”

But Williams said that the district, which serves about 20,000 students, must confront the impending residential growth.

“It would be real easy to sit back and do nothing. . . . But we’ve got to plan ahead,” she said. “We need some sort of movement.”

A study session is scheduled for 8:30 a.m. today in the Placentia district offices. Williams said that the board will review the options, but no decision will be made.

The board will announce its recommendation at a 7:30 p.m. meeting Tuesday in the Valencia High School music facility, Fleming said.