Cities Face Switch to Year-Round Schools : Long Beach Predicts Elementary Units Changing This Decade

LONG BEACH —  All of the Long Beach school district’s elementary schools probably will be converted to year-round schedules this decade if enrollment continues to grow as expected, officials said this week.

The traditional three-month summer vacation could be eliminated in at least half the elementary schools by 1995, and in the others by 1998, officials said. Seven elementary schools in the downtown and central areas have been converted to year-round schedules in the last two years to relieve overcrowding.

The district might avoid a total conversion if there is a reversal in enrollment growth, or if it receives a “massive infusion” of state or local money to build new schools, said Charles Carpenter, deputy superintendent for instruction. He added, however, that those developments “are relatively unlikely.”

Lew Prilliman, the district’s research director, said 30 to 40 schools may have to be converted to year-round schedules by 1995, “just to handle what we are currently projecting.”

If growth continues at the same rate, Prilliman said, the district would have until 1997 or 1998 to convert all 59 elementary schools.

“But if kindergarten children increase at a faster rate than we expect, and there’s some indication that will happen, we’ll have to look at virtually (all elementary schools by 1995,)” Prilliman said.

Last year, enrollment grew more than 2,000 to 69,106, surpassing administrators’ estimates by 1,000 students.

The city’s birth rate also has increased--from 11,095 in 1987 to 11,394 last year. About 62% of those babies will be enrolling in a Long Beach school when they reach school age, said Jenny Oropeza, school board president.

Prilliman said the board in another 10 years may have to consider converting all schools, including high schools, to year-round schedules.

All five school board members said this week that they support a year-round system, but three members rejected an administration proposal to convert two schools on the affluent east side.

Board members Karin Polacheck, Jerry Shultz and Harriet Williams voted against the plan, pointing out that the district already has undergone significant changes, such as adding freshmen to high schools and converting junior high schools to middle schools.

The changes, Polacheck said, have “raised extremely high anxiety levels.” Year-round schools in the east side would create “one more headache that we don’t need to deal with.”

Shultz said, “I fully support the year-round concept, (but) I don’t think the time is right.”

The vote angered board President Oropeza, who reminded her colleagues that last year they said they would approve year-round programs in two schools outside the city’s minority neighborhoods. Oropeza and board member Bobbie Smith voted to expand the program.

The board’s vote gives the year-round program the appearance of “a minority or lower socioeconomic answer to education,” Oropeza said, adding that it is important to convert schools in the east side to let “our middle-class community understand and experience the year-round experience so they can see that it works.”

“The longer we wait, the harder we make it (for year-round schools) to be accepted by middle America. And that’s a shame,” Oropeza said after the meeting.

The three members who rejected the proposal also said they would prefer to find an east side school that would be willing to convert to a year-round schedule voluntarily.

But district administrators have held formal and informal discussions with administrators, teachers and parents on the east side over a period of months, and found no volunteers, said Carpenter, the deputy superintendent.

Supt. Tom Giugni had urged the board to approve the expansion, warning: “If you don’t move soon, instead of being able to take it step by step, you’ll face what L.A. is facing.”

Last month, the Los Angeles school board voted 4 to 3 to put the entire Los Angeles Unified School District on a year-round program. The plan was sharply criticized by parents who said it would disrupt family vacations, create child-care problems and force children to suffer in classrooms that are not air conditioned.

In the last two years, seven Long Beach elementary schools have been converted to year-round schedules, in which students are divided into four groups. A school’s classroom capacity is increased because one group is on vacation while the other three are in school.

The seven elementary schools in the central and downtown areas agreed to the conversion partly to ease an overflow of students who otherwise would have to be bused outside the neighborhoods, district administrators said.

Burbank, Lee, Stevenson and Willard elementary schools went to year-round schedules two years ago, and Burnett, Lincoln and Roosevelt schools started year-round operations last year.

YEAR-ROUND SCHOOLS

Long Beach elementary schools on year-round schedule:

Enrollment School Address Fall, 1989 Luther Burbank 501 Junipero Ave. 727 Peter H. Burnett 565 E. Hill St. 877 Robert E. Lee 1620 Temple Ave. 842 Abraham Lincoln 1175 E. 11th St. 1,104 Theodore Roosevelt 1574 Linden Ave. 1,193 Robert Louis Stevenson 515 Lime Ave. 716 Frances E. Willard 1055 Freeman Ave. 835

Source: Long Beach Unified School District.