Board OKs Funds to Open 3-Grade Middle Schools : Education: Separate schools for students in sixth, seventh and eighth grades are slated to open next September.

NORWALK-LA MIRADA —  The Norwalk-La Mirada Unified School District board has voted to spend $4.9 million to create separate schools for students in the sixth, seventh and eighth grades.

The new middle-school system is scheduled to begin operating at the start of the school year next September. Under the current setup, sixth- and seventh-graders have been attending elementary schools in the two cities, while eighth-graders have been placed in high schools.

Board member Sal Ambriz said the new middle-school system represents “a drastic change” but he pointed out that “there has been a consistent complaint that our eighth-graders are too young for high school and our seventh-graders are too old for elementary schools.”

The district operated intermediate schools for seventh- and eighth-graders until 1978 but closed them in response to declining enrollment.

The board unanimously approved the middle-school expenditure Monday, despite some concerns about the cost.

Board member Jesse M. Luera said he was “going against my better judgment” in voting for the middle schools. “I have concerns about future funding,” he said.

The district plans to sell the site of a former high school and lease the site of a former elementary school to pay the $4.9-million cost of setting up six middle schools. But it will cost the district another $700,000 or $800,000 a year to run the schools, officials estimated.

They said the switch to a middle-school system should increase enrollment, which would generate enough additional state aid to cover a large portion of the higher operating costs. Officials estimated that the school system lost 184 students last year because parents preferred to send their eighth-grade children to middle schools outside the district rather than to a district high school. An enrollment increase of that magnitude next year would boost state aid by more than $600,000, officials predicted.

But board member Rudy Bermudez said he is still concerned that the district may have to exhaust its reserves or make other cuts to pay the cost of running the middle schools. He said he would have preferred to delay the opening of middle schools until the 1994 school year.

He also said the new schools will increase the district’s transportation costs. “We will have to look at how we provide transportation,” he said. “We may have to go the way of other districts and charge for transportation.”

Some parents said they were concerned that the cost of running the new middle schools may result in cuts in educational programs elsewhere. “My concern is, what kind of cuts are we talking about,” said Chris Horton, a former PTA president from Dulles Elementary School. “Will we lose the music program? Counselors at the schools?”

Supt. Robert Aguilar said the funding projections were based on comprehensive studies. “We have looked at this carefully,” he said. “We all have a concern about the money. But we are going to work together on this.”

Under the new plan, three Norwalk elementary schools and a La Mirada elementary school will be converted to middle schools. They are Waite, Hargitt and Lampton schools in Norwalk and Hutchinson in La Mirada.

The district will also reopen two former intermediate schools--Benton in La Mirada and Corvallis in Norwalk. Whittier Christian School had been leasing the Benton site since 1985. The Corvallis building has been housing a district program and a preschool.