Board Gives Schools Different Deadlines on Year-Round Plan

A deeply divided Los Angeles Board of Education voted 4 to 3 Monday night on a timetable for increasing classroom space that gives some schools breathing room while forcing others onto a controversial staggered, year-round calendar by July 1.

In adopting a plan last month requiring 109 of the Los Angeles Unified School District’s 600 campuses to come up with a way to increase classroom capacity by 23% by the start of the next school year, board members gave schools three choices. They can add two children to each class, add temporary classrooms or “bungalows”, or convert to a staggered, year-round calendar.

But board members also put restrictions on the use of bungalows, and last week they learned that, in effect, 63 of the 109 schools would have no choice but to adopt a multitrack, year-round calendar in order to meet the 23% increase requirement.

Another 25 schools could meet the requirement without going to the staggered calendar--but they cannot get the bungalows in time for the board’s July 1 deadline.

On Monday, in an angry session that at one point threatened to unravel the whole overcrowding-relief plan, the board bent the deadline for the 25 bungalow-seeking schools, but told the 63 others they were, basically, out of luck.

The vote came as board members struggled to adopt a timetable for parents and staff at each of the 109 schools to vote on what methods they want to use to meet the increase requirement.

“Everybody should have to play by the same rules . . . I don’t think you can go both directions at the same time,” said board President Jackie Goldberg, who futilely argued, along with board members Rita Walters and Leticia Quezada, that no delays should be granted.

All three represent crowded inner-city neighborhoods, where many schools were forced to switch to staggered, year-round schools several years ago and where many students must endure long bus rides to schools that still have room for them.

They again raised the issue of equitable treatment, noting that inner-city children, many of them minorities, have long borne the brunt of the district’s student population explosion.

Quezada attacked Supt. Leonard Britton for recommending that the 25 schools which could solve their problems with bungalows be given time to do so.

“I am greatly, greatly disturbed that you see the equity issue as short-term,” she said.

Britton responded that he saw no point in forcing such schools to switch to a staggered calendar on July 1, only to have them switch back again once bungalows arrive.

While all the district’s 600 schools will convert to a year-round calendar within two years, not all of them will have to use the multitrack, or staggered, schedule. Some can have all the students in school at the same time, eliminating potential problems of having siblings on different calendars.

The strongest opposition to any year-round calendar has come from parents in the less-crowded suburban neighborhoods represented by Roberta Weintraub, Warren Furutani, Mark Slavkin and Julie Korenstein. They voted in a bloc Monday night.

In the timetable adopted Monday night, the board set a March 28 deadline for meetings with parents and community members to explain the options, if any. Ballots must be distributed by March 28 and returned by April 6, with results reported by April 18.