New Belmont Complex Benefits

* Despite years of independent review and oversight of the LAUSD’s Belmont Learning Center proposal, erroneous news reports about the new high school at Temple/Beaudry have recklessly endangered a desperately needed campus. I’d like to set the record straight about the benefits of this school. Belmont will provide desks for 5,300 students on a year-round schedule. While many will come from the existing overcrowded Belmont campus, 1,700 students that would have been bused across town will return to their neighborhood school--reducing costly bus trips.

Meeting the needs of one of the densest neighborhoods in Los Angeles called for a larger-than-average campus--Belmont will be the size of three regular LAUSD campuses. Construction costs are $87 million, with a guarantee from the builder that it will pay for cost overruns. On a per student and square footage basis, it’s less expensive than other recently built high schools in similar city locations. Compare this to the $373 million spent to house 4,100 criminals at the Twin Towers jail. Surely our society values its children more than its criminals.

Recent state legislation called upon school districts statewide to develop innovative campus designs that provide more than barracks-like facilities. Families in the central city have waited more than a decade to obtain this much needed school. Every day delayed is another day denied to these families.

VICTORIA M. CASTRO

Board Member, District 2

LAUSD