DISTRICT WILL WEIGH SENDING 4TH-GRADERS TO MIDDLE SCHOOL.

Byline: Mary Schubert Daily News Staff Writer

At the tender age of 7, Live Oak Elementary has outgrown its 5-acre, 20-classroom school, and district officials are considering sending fourth- and fifth-graders to the middle school campus.

The Castaic school board is expected to decide at its March 13 meeting whether to send Live Oak's 9-, 10- and 11-year-olds from their neighborhood school to a campus about 3 miles north.

It's not just that Live Oak's enrollment is 645 and counting. It's also that the state's class size reduction plan calls for a maximum of 20 students in primary grade classrooms, rather than the 30 that has been the average.

Already, Live Oak has added three portable classrooms to accommodate the class size reduction for its first-graders. That brings to 23 the number of classrooms to serve six grade levels.

Gov. Pete Wilson and the state Legislature now want California public schools to shrink their second-grade, third-grade and kindergarten classes to 20 students each. The directive - and accompanying state funding - have sent districts scrambling to hire teachers and to install trailerlike buildings on their playgrounds to create more classroom space.

Castaic Union School District officials, trying to implement class size reduction amid a continuously climbing enrollment, are mulling whether to make Live Oak a kindergarten-through-third-grade school. District administrators and principals said there's such a demand across California for portable classrooms that, if one were ordered today, it would take a year to be delivered.

What to do in the interim, then, with the growing ranks of students and the pressure from state officials and local parents to implement class size reduction? Send the older kids to the district's brand new, spacious Castaic Middle School, some say.

``All this is being prompted by growth. There's only so many buildings,'' said Peter Swavely, principal at Live Oak. ``Castaic is an area that people want to move out to.''

Swavely said that if the change is approved, it would take place in September, as the 1997-98 school year begins.

Administrators and principals of Castaic's three schools have met with representatives of the local PTAs. A letter outlining the proposed plan will be sent to parents of the district's 2,000 students this month, and meetings will be held to gather public input before the Board of Education makes a decision, said Jim Estes, the school district's director of business and personnel.

``One of the biggest concerns is that these fourth-graders aren't ready to be up there with teen-agers - 12-, 13- and 14-year-olds at the middle school,'' Swavely said.

``But right now, I have every single part of my facility being used,'' the principal added. ``There's just no space at the school right now. We're bursting at the seams.''

The overcrowding situation is exacerbated by recent surges in development. Residential tracts are under construction or in the planning stages; some of them include sites for future schools and others don't.

In the next few years, for instance, The Valencia Company, a division of The Newhall Land and Farming Company, plans to build 750 houses in the Hasley Canyon area, but no schools. The NorthLake project will add a maximum of 4,275 homes to the school district within a decade, and that 1,600-acre development is expected to include two elementary schools.

Swavely said planning has to begin now for the inevitable influx of students to the district. The problem could be alleviated somewhat when the new Castaic Elementary School opens in September, potentially freeing up more than a dozen of the trailer classrooms currently being used.

``Parents have asked: `Why don't you move the portables to Live Oak and let us keep our kids there?' '' Swavely said. ``But it costs $6,000 to move each portable,'' he said, noting that there's the added cost of preparing the new site and hooking up utilities.

District officials, he said, are searching for a solution that will be most beneficial and least disruptive for all its children. ``We have almost 2,000 students in our district, and we have to look at what is best for all of them,'' Swavely said. ``We're not trying to sacrifice one group (for the benefit) of another.''

Estes noted that there are 29 public schools in California that are limited to grades four through eight. If the proposal wins approval, Castaic Middle School would be the 30th such campus.

The school board is expected to discuss the matter at its Feb. 20 meeting, then take action March 13, Estes said.

Lisa McKeown, PTA president at Live Oak and the mother of a first-grader there, said district officials are proposing the fourth- and fifth-graders would occupy a separate part of Castaic Middle School.

``They will not have to mingle with the older kids,'' McKeown said. ``They would be treated totally and completely like grammar-school kids.''

LIVE OAK SCHOOL

The Castaic Union School District: The school board will consider remedies to overcrowding at Live Oak Elementary School when it meets at 6 p.m. Feb. 20 at the district office, 31616 Ridge Route. One proposal involves transferring fourth- and fifth-graders from Live Oak to the new Castaic Middle School, which now serves grades 6-8.

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