Palmdale District to Open 2 New Schools on Tuesday

The fast-growing Palmdale School District is set to open two new schools on Tuesday, easing the burden on the district’s existing facilities and sending about 1,350 students to new classrooms on their first day back from the holiday break.

The highlight will be the opening of the district’s $5-million Desert Rose Elementary School, a permanent facility that will start with about 750 students. The children had been using portable classrooms on the same campus since the scheduled fall opening of the new school had been delayed.

Meanwhile, the district will open Mesquite Elementary School, a $2-million temporary collection of bungalows that will be used by about 600 students who spent the fall at Chaparral Elementary School, waiting for their own school to be completed.

Supt. Forrest McElroy said the district now has room for about 13,000 students. “We’re certainly in pretty good shape,” he said. Originally, enrollment was expected to top 13,000 this year, but with a slowed housing market, district officials now expect it to remain under 12,000.

The new schools will not require hiring of additional teachers and administrators, since both will come with the students from their prior quarters. Nor should the changes alter the size of classes, since those already had been restricted under the teachers’ contract.

But McElroy said the two new schools will ease the burden on libraries and cafeterias at the schools the students are leaving.

The student population has almost tripled since 1984 from nearly 4,400 to an expected 11,700 this spring, so the Palmdale district has many schools sharing campuses and thousands of students in temporary quarters.

The Desert Rose students had been sharing their temporary classrooms with another elementary school, Wildflower, on the same 10-acre site. With the opening of the new Desert Rose school there, Wildflower can expand, and both schools will now have separate cafeteria and library facilities.

Students and teachers at Mesquite, which had been one of three schools crowded into temporary quarters on the Chaparral campus, will have their own bungalows on a separate five-acre site. Eventually, the district hopes to build a permanent school there.