DISTRICT PLANNING SMALLER, LESS TRADITIONAL CAMPUSES.

Byline: Sherry Joe Crosby Staff Writer

Faced with limited resources, neighborhood opposition and an impending deadline to apply for state construction funds, the district is pursuing innovative solutions to relieve overcrowding and build 100 schools during the next decade.

In a move away from large, isolated factory-model schools, the district is looking to build smaller, more intimate campuses in blighted neighborhoods close to parks, libraries and other facilities that offer joint-use possibilities.

``It just makes sense,'' said Dale Braun, director of school management services for the Los Angeles Unified School District. ``It makes good use of the facilities where we can locate next to a park. We benefit from the playing space for children, and if we build a multipurpose room for kids, the community can benefit after hours and we're not double-building facilities.''

In the Valley, the district is considering building an elementary school next to the former North Hollywood police station, which is slated to become a recreation center for seniors. The district also is working to persuade Robinsons-May to relocate its corporate headquarters and a department store from its North Hollywood location to a nearby shopping center to make way for a high school.

A counterproposal by a San Fernando Valley business group calls for building the high school on city-owned land adjacent to a North Hollywood park.

Citywide, the district is pursuing a joint-use agreement with the Los Angeles Community College District to build high schools on college campus land.

And in one of the most densely populated areas of the city, the district is working with community leaders to build schools on the sites of former prostitution motels, adjacent to a recreation center and next door to a Korean cultural center that could offer tutoring to children after school.

``We have to find sites for 80,000 more kids. That's the basic problem,'' said school board member Caprice Young. The district must hurry to find school sites, she said, or risk losing $1.5 billion if it doesn't meet a June deadline to apply for state construction bond funds.

With the district set to build 100 schools in the next decade, a reform-minded Board of Education wants to build smaller schools serving from 400 to 1,800 students at the most.

Supporters of smaller schools say students fare better in more intimate settings and point to last spring's shooting tragedy at Columbine High School in suburban Denver as evidence of the problems students, teachers and staff encounter in large schools.

``What happened at Columbine brought to the public's attention how isolated students have become, even from the principal of the school and how isolated school has become from the community,'' said Stephen Bingler, an architecture and planning consultant with the U.S. Department of Education.

Bingler is working with the school district and a group of residents in the Mid-Wilshire District to select, design and build new schools to relieve an overcrowded elementary school.

For 12 years, he has promoted the idea of building smaller schools that act as community hubs, serving students during the day and the public at night.

``Auditoriums could be used as performing arts centers, gymnasiums could be used as community fitness centers,'' he said. ``Instead of building parks with baseball diamonds and schools with baseball diamonds, we should be putting schools and parks together and have all these resources accessible to the community all day long and all weekend long.''

Bingler said the approach would not only save money and avoid duplication of services, but help raise student test scores.

``We're learning how important it is to have parents and the community involved (in schools), and that may be one of the most important factors in student achievement,'' he said.

The district already is putting that philosophy into action.

In the Mid-Wilshire District, Bingler is working with residents who have identified potential locations for six 400-student schools to help relieve overcrowding at Cahuenga Elementary.

The sites included would replace two motels frequented by prostitutes, a crime-infested apartment building, and lots next to a YMCA and a Korean cultural center.

``Schools should be the center of life in a neighborhood,'' said George Richter, president of the Beverly-Kingsley Neighborhood Association, which found sites that would eliminate some of the community's most blighted properties and locate schools closer to the heaviest concentrations of students.

``The strategy is to put schools where (children) live, make them safe, build strong institutions with good values and chip away at the gang culture,'' Richter said. ``What we're doing now is not working.''

The district is conducting feasibility studies on more than 40 locations for new schools including a 4-acre elementary school site next to the former North Hollywood police station surrounded by Lankershim Boulevard, Tujunga Avenue, Tiara and Califa streets. The city is transforming the building into a multi-use center for children and seniors.

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Map: Potential school sites