San Fernando Valley : Dispute Flares Over Vote on Year-Round School Schedule

One day after the Los Angeles Board of Education agreed to delay a vote to convert four San Fernando Valley high schools to a year-round schedule, parents and teachers at those campuses blasted the board for accommodating a small group upset by the proposed change.

About two dozen parents and students from the North Hollywood High School highly gifted magnet program persuaded the board to postpone the vote, saying the year-round system would hurt the specialized program by preventing participation in summer enrichment programs.

But parents, teachers and administrators resigned to the change said Tuesday that the board should consider first the needs of the majority of its students, not just its brightest.

“It’s an elitist attitude,” said Tony Maldonado, president of the North Hollywood High School bilingual advisory council, which voted to put the magnet students on the disputed schedule. “We’re concerned about 3,000 students, and not just 10% of them. We’re talking about a public institution for the benefit of all.”

The schools--Monroe, North Hollywood, John H. Francis Polytechnic and San Fernando--have little choice but to switch to a year-round system to ease overcrowding caused by the addition of a freshman class in the coming school year.

But the magnet parents complain that a North Hollywood school panel placed the students on a schedule that will keep them in class during the summer months, a time when students enroll in summer courses at Harvard, Yale, Oxford and other prestigious universities.