DISTRICT ASKS PARENTS TO SWAP TRACKS; NEWHALL'S YEAR-ROUND SCHEDULE CREATES COMBO-GRADE DILEMMA.

Byline: Mary Schubert Daily News Staff Writer

The Newhall School District switched to a year-round schedule to correct one problem - overcrowding - but gained a different predicament in the bargain: too many combination classes.

Even when a school is on a single calendar, it's sometimes difficult to divide pupils into nice round groups of 30 or 20 per classroom per grade level, administrators say. It might be necessary to put excess fourth-graders, for instance, with overflow numbers of fifth-graders to make a full class assigned to one teacher.

That balancing act becomes even trickier when students are split among four schedules for the year-round program. So Superintendent Marc Winger instructed district principals to do some rearranging to minimize the number of combination classes in the 1999-2000 school year that begins July 6.

``We have reached the point where we need the help of school families. This goal can be met when some families change tracks,'' Valencia Valley Elementary School Principal Wayne Abruzzo said in a March 20 letter to parents.

``This year, we have four combination classes,'' Abruzzo said in the letter. ``Without any manipulation of the current track assignments, we would have around 10 combination classes next year.''

Five other principals - from Meadows, Newhall, Peachland, Stevenson Ranch and Wiley Canyon elementary schools - sent similar appeals to parents, asking for volunteers to move their children onto a different track to make it easier to divide students into single-grade classes.

The district's seventh school, Old Orchard, has such a small enrollment that all its students are on the same schedule. Overall, there are 6,000 students in the Newhall district.

The juggling strategy comes nearly a year after the Newhall district changed to its year-round system. Hundreds of parents at each school camped out for days to make sure their families got their preferred schedule. At most schools, the blue and yellow tracks have fewer students than the red and green tracks.

``We don't think combination grades are a terrible thing,'' Winger said. ``They're workable, but they're more work for the teacher. If we can work it so that teachers don't have to put in the extra time and planning, we want to do that.''

Teachers, Winger noted, don't get paid extra if they are assigned a split-grade class. Generally, parents don't clamor for their children to be placed in them, either.

``There are always concerns about combination grades. Parents do perceive them negatively,'' the superintendent acknowledged. But such configurations are inevitable when a school of about 800 students is divided into four tracks, he said.

Winger said that principals can create tracks with uneven amounts of students overall - like 230 on the blue track and 270 on the green track - if that will help them balance their class assignments. Principals can even load one track with sixth-graders, for instance, if that will help them avoid combination classes, he said.

If necessary, principals could assign children to any track where the need exists - but Winger said the district would prefer to let families volunteer for the changes. Another possibility is that new enrollees to the district would be placed on whatever track schedule has vacancies.

Valencia Valley parent Liz Eisen said her fourth-grade daughter's assignment to a combination class on the yellow track - the school's smallest - has worked out well, which she credited to the teacher's efforts and organization.