ALTERNATIVE LEARNING MORE RESIDENTS TURNING TO CHARTER SCHOOLS.

Byline: - Naush Boghossian

As enrollment in the Los Angeles Unified School District continues to decline, the city's charter schools are experiencing a boom, with more than 10,000 students on their waiting lists.

Caprice Young, CEO of the California Charter Schools Association - the membership and professional organization serving the 574 charter schools in the state - expects to see the LAUSD approve its 100th charter campus this spring.

``Charter schools have become hugely popular in Los Angeles just the last three years,'' said Young, a former member of the LAUSD board. Currently, there are 86 charters in L.A. Unified, serving 38,100 kids. ``And it's being driven by demand more than anything else,'' she said.

By 2014, the charter schools association expects that 10 percent of the students - more than 600,000 - in California will be attending the independent public schools.

The main force fueling the growing popularity of charter schools is parental satisfaction, Young said: parents with children in charter schools talking to other parents and sharing their positive experiences.

``With more and more kids in charter schools, more parents are finding out about them and want to send their kids,'' Young said. ``It's a hunger for small schools, for schools that are really focused on student achievement without giving up arts and science.''

Ten years into the charter school movement, founders of successful charters have begun replicating their schools in the communities they serve.

Jacqueline Elliot, who opened Community Charter Middle School in San Fernando, opened two more campuses in 2004 based on that school's success: Community Charter High School in Van Nuys and Lakeview Charter School in San Fernando.

She and the founder of CALS Middle School created Partnerships to Uplift Communities to develop and maintain high-quality charter schools in northeast Los Angeles and the northeast San Fernando Valley.

Together they have six schools and plan to open two more charters in the fall. One of the schools will be Triumph Academy in the Valley, which will replicate Lakeview and Community Charter.

PUC's goal is to open 13 schools by 2011.

``We have a vision that all of our students will graduate from college. We are replicating the design elements, approaches and strategies that work together synergistically to achieve the outcome,'' said Elliot, co-founder and CEO of PUC schools. ``Really good things should not get lost - they should multiply to maximize on our achievement.''

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(1 -- color) Science teacher Mary Gunckel helps a student at Fenton Elementary in Lake View Terrace, one of a growing number of charter schools in the region.

(2 -- color) Barbara Aragon, a fifth grade teacher at Fenton Elementary in Lake View Terrace works on a math problem with student Vivian Matute.

David Sprague/Staff Photographer

(3 -- color) Seventh-grader Michelle Bustamante works in one of the computer labs at Magnolia Science Academy in Reseda.

Evan Yee/Staff Photographer