19 Valley Campuses Should Remain Closed, School Official Says

None of the 19 West San Fernando Valley schools closed because of low enrollments should be reopened for students from crowded schools, a Los Angeles Unified School District official said Thursday.

The recommendation of Bryon Kimball, director of the district’s Facilities Services Division, came as the Board of Education reviewed proposals to ease crowding in other parts of the district.

One of the proposals would place the entire district on a year-round calendar to provide enough classroom space for the projected 70,000 students expected to be added in the district during the next five years. That proposal has drawn much opposition from parents, and Thursday’s board session was aimed at considering alternatives to the year-round plan.

But Kimball said reopening the West Valley’s closed schools was not a good alternative.

“It’s uneconomical,” Kimball said. “Our projections show that at some schools we would only have 100 students. And that’s with minority students from overcrowded schools.”

Eight of the closed schools are empty; the other 11 have either been leased to private schools or are being used for school-district purposes. Only one of those schools, Parthenia Elementary in Sepulveda, should be considered for reopening, Kimball said.

Kimball said his staff re-created the attendance boundaries of the closed schools and canvassed neighboring campuses to see how many students would have attended the closed schools.

The district also had to take into consideration court-approved desegregation guidelines in looking at reopening the schools, Kimball said. After the number of white students living in a closed school’s attendance area had been determined, the staff used accepted ethnic ratios to determine how many minority students could be brought to each campus.

For example, there are 46 elementary-age children living near Highlander Road Elementary School in Canoga Park. Under the 60%-40% ethnic ratio approved by the courts, only 57 minority students could be taken to the school. That would mean only 103 students could use a campus built for 535.

Nor could the district open the closed schools for the sole use of students from crowded schools, a district spokesman said after the session. Because most of the crowded schools are in predominantly minority communities, establishing a school for minority students in a predominantly white community could be interpreted as the district’s intentionally creating a segregated school.

Kimball’s enrollment projections were challenged by some Valley parents, who said in interviews after the session that the district should have taken into account new residential construction that probably will attract families with children to many areas of the West Valley.

“Right behind Highlander Road there are 500 residential units being built. The prices are between $175,000 to $220,000,” said Barbara Romey, one of the leaders of Valley Parents Action Committee.

“How can you not take all of that new construction into account when you are making enrollment projections?” Romey asked.

Thursday’s study session did not include any opportunities for public testimony.

Kimball’s justification for possibly reopening Parthenia Elementary was that there are 250 elementary-age children in the school’s attendance area, which would allow about 183 minority students to be bused to the campus.

Besides, neighboring Langdon Elementary School, also in Sepulveda, is quickly reaching capacity. Kimball said that, if Parthenia was reopened, it might be possible to transfer some Langdon students to Parthenia.

“My big concern is that Langdon is a mile and a half away from Parthenia and on the eastern side of the San Diego Freeway,” Kimball said. “How we going to ask kids to go under the freeway and walk a mile and a half to school?”