GLENDALE UNIFIED CONSIDERS STEPS TO EASE CROWDING : PARENTS OPPOSE SOME PROPOSALS.Byline: Lee Condon Daily News Staff Writer Denise Nelson and other parents in her La Crescenta neighborhood went to a school meeting recently to hear about plans to solve crowding problems. She said they left ``scared to death.'' Proposals from the Glendale Unified School District The Glendale Unified School District is a school district based in Glendale, California, United States. The school district serves the city of Glendale, portions of the city of La Cañada and the unincorporated communities of Montrose and La Crescenta. include: moving sixth-graders out of elementary schools elementary school: see school. and into middle school; placing middle schools on a year-round schedule; and busing children from the southern and central sections of Glendale into La Crescenta schools. ``I think parents feel like we're going to get the short end of the stick,'' said Nelson, whose child is in elementary school. ``It's a sense of resignation that the school board has already decided.'' On Tuesday, the Glendale school board will review the comments they received from parents about the proposals during 22 meetings held during the past three months to let parents help solve the crowding. Board President Jeanne Bentley said she wants to see a master plan for school expansion in place by February. Although the proposals might seem radical to parents, school officials concede that it is only because the growth has been radical. In 1985, 20,000 students were enrolled in Glendale Unified. Today, there are more than 30,000. An additional 2,000 students are expected to swell local campuses by the year 2000. This growth started in the 1980s, fueled by rapid business development and immigration immigration, entrance of a person (an alien) into a new country for the purpose of establishing permanent residence. Motives for immigration, like those for migration generally, are often economic, although religious or political factors may be very important. from Armenia, the former Soviet Union and the Middle East. Most apartment and condominium condominium In modern property law, individual ownership of one dwelling unit within a multidwelling building. Unit owners have undivided ownership interest in the land and those portions of the building shared in common. construction was concentrated on the city's south end and was relatively high-density, with 58 units per acre. By 1988, the city began to stem the tide Stem The Tide An attempt to stop a prevailing trend. Sometimes referred to as "stop the bleeding." Notes: If a stock is continually falling, stemming the tide would be an attempt to halt the free fall and change its direction. See also: Reversal, Trend of growth by putting a temporary moratorium A suspension of activity or an authorized period of delay or waiting. A moratorium is sometimes agreed upon by the interested parties, or it may be authorized or imposed by operation of law. on apartment and condominium building, eventually changing the density requirements to 35 units per acre. But it was too late; Glendale Unified is no longer the same school district that many parents say drew them to the city. And that's why they say they are wary about any further changes to the schools. ``People feel very threatened. They take it very personally and get very emotional about it,'' said Cris Martinez, the president of the Parent-Teacher Association parent-teacher association Noun an organization consisting of the parents and teachers of school pupils formed to organize activities on behalf of the school at Lincoln Elementary School Lincoln Elementary School is the name of numerous schools, with most of them in the U.S. named after President Abraham Lincoln, including:
``They say, `This is why I moved to Glendale, I didn't want my kid to go to school year-round.' '' School officials are sympathetic but say the crowding cannot be allowed to continue. Building classrooms and adding portable classrooms is no longer enough, said schools spokesman Vic Pallos. ``Any time change occurs in a community as quickly as its happened in Glendale some people are uncomfortable with that,'' Pallos said. The pressures come from many directions: The state is forcing schools to cut class sizes by 1998 to 20 students or fewer in kindergarten kindergarten [Ger.,=garden of children], system of preschool education. Friedrich Froebel designed (1837) the kindergarten to provide an educational situation less formal than that of the elementary school but one in which children's creative play instincts would be through third grade. Before the state announced its plans last summer, school officials believed they needed to add 80 new classrooms. With the class-size mandate, Bentley said the district now needs 200 new classrooms. ``The class-size reduction accelerated this process,'' Pallos said. ``Not only are we growing, we're also reducing class size.'' The board also is racing a deadline to ask voters to approve a bond in June or November, for the renovation of existing schools, some of them as old as 70 years. School officials say they expect Glendale will need to build a fourth comprehensive high school, but say it will be difficult to find a large enough site and the money. ``It's probably unlikely that we could crank enough money into that bond for a new high school,'' Bentley said. ``I don't think there's any question that we need another high school. It's the linchpin linch·pin or lynch·pin n. 1. A locking pin inserted in the end of a shaft, as in an axle, to prevent a wheel from slipping off. 2. of the whole thing.'' Last summer a committee of residents and school staff drafted a series of recommendations for handling enrollment growth in middle schools. Key proposals included moving sixth-graders into the four middle schools and switching them to a year-round calendar. Already nine of the district's 19 elementary schools are on a year-round calendar. Busing likely will not be chosen as a solution for crowding, Pallos said. But even the suggestion of busing has hit a nerve among residents of La Crescenta, which is part of Glendale Unified School District and an unincorporated Adj. 1. unincorporated - not organized and maintained as a legal corporation unorganised, unorganized - not having or belonging to a structured whole; "unorganized territories lack a formal government" part of Los Angeles Los Angeles (lôs ăn`jələs, lŏs, ăn`jəlēz'), city (1990 pop. 3,485,398), seat of Los Angeles co., S Calif.; inc. 1850. County. While Glendale is an ever-growing midsize city, La Crescenta is still very much a small town. Residents here would rather keep their schools self-contained, and object to them being used to deal with overcrowding overcrowding overcrowding of animal accommodation. Many countries now publish codes of practice which define what the appropriate volumetric allowances should be for each species of animal when they are housed indoors. Breaches of these codes is overcrowding. in Glendale. ``They don't want to be the scapegoat scapegoat In the Old Testament, a goat that was symbolically burdened with the sins of the people and then killed on Yom Kippur to rid Jerusalem of its iniquities. Similar rituals were held elsewhere in the ancient world to transfer guilt or blame. or the solution for anybody else's problem,'' explained Martinez. Some La Crescenta residents object to the idea of importing students from south and central Glendale, where the schools are most crowded. The students would be placed in Clark Junior High and Valley View Elementary School. Both of them are La Crescenta schools that closed because of declining enrollment, but now it appears they will be reopened. ``They closed (Clark) to save money. Now the growth is (in La Crescenta) and I think we should get our school back,' said Danette Erickson, a member of the Crescenta Valley The Crescenta Valley is a small inland valley in Los Angeles County, California. Its name derives from its crescent-like shape, with the convex portion facing roughly northeast and the concave portion southwest. Town Council. ``I really believe in the idea of neighborhood schools. I don't believe in the idea of busing.'' Joanna Junge, principal of Edison Elementary School Edison Elementary School is the name of many primary schools, with most of them named after Thomas Edison. They include:
``They love their neighborhood schools,'' Junge said. Tim Mitchell, who lives in a northern section of Glendale adjacent to La Crescenta, said children should go to school where they live. Mitchell said residents of northern Glendale and La Crescenta resent re·sent tr.v. re·sent·ed, re·sent·ing, re·sents To feel indignantly aggrieved at. [French ressentir, to be angry, from Old French resentir, that their schools are being targeted to solve the problems caused by development in south and central Glendale. ``We haven't built five-story apartment buildings all over the place with five people living in each unit,'' Mitchell said. At the same time, Pallos said parents of students in south and central Glendale feel that if they have to go to a year-round calendar, so should the schools in La Crescenta and northern Glendale. Another controversial proposal is one to move sixth-graders to the middle schools. ``We feel it's making them grow up too fast,'' said Lisa Yegyihan, whose fourth-grade son, now at Lincoln Elementary School, would be in the first class of sixth-graders to make the switch. ``A lot of them are pups.'' CAPTION(S): Chart Chart: Glendale school enrollment Daily News |
|
||||||||||||||
Printer friendly
Cite/link
Email
Feedback
Reader Opinion