HOUSING BOOM BLAMED FOR BOND NEED.

Byline: CHARLES F. BOSTWICK Staff Writer

LANCASTER - Thousands of new students expected from fast-multiplying new housing tracts require passing bonds to build new schools, officials of two school districts say.

State law limits how much home builders or homebuyers can be charged to help build new schools, state aid pays a fraction of the construction cost and local schools are already crowded, even ones opened in recent years with earlier bond measures, officials say.

``What do you do? We're going for a bond. That's kind of what we have to do,'' Antelope Valley Union High School District Superintendent David Vierra said.

Antelope Valley voters at the June 6 primary election will be asked to pass Measure E, a $177 million bond issue to build two new high schools and to expand and improve existing campuses.

The new bonds would annually cost property owners about $30 per $100,000 of assessed valuation, which is slightly higher than what they already pay on a bond measure passed by voters in 2002.

In the Westside Union School District, in addition, voters on June 6 will be asked to pass Measure K, a $55 million bond measure to build three new elementary schools and a middle school, as well as modernize older schools.

``Every single one of our schools is currently overcrowded,'' Westside Superintendent Regina Rossall said, speaking with Vierra and high school trustee Donita Winn at a luncheon meeting Tuesday of the Antelope Valley Hispanic Chamber of Commerce.

Measure K, if approved, would cost property owners about $27 per $100,000 of assessed valuation annually in west Palmdale, west Lancaster, Quartz Hill, Leona Valley and Antelope Acres.

The Antelope Valley Union High School District covers all of the valley south of the Kern County line.

Westside, one of the eight independent elementary school districts inside the high school district, covers the valley from west Palmdale and west Lancaster almost to Gorman.Westside's boundaries include three giant master-plan communities: the 7,000-home Ritter Ranch and 5,000-home Ana Verde in west Palmdale and the 2,400-home Del Sur in the Antelope Acres area.

Those tracts will bring students not only to Westside schools but to the high school district as well. Smaller tracts also are under construction around the valley.

Westside officials expect their schools to gain 4,000 to 7,000 pupils over the next five years. The schools now contain about 8,700 pupils.

High school enrollment has gone from about 13,000 students in 1993 to more than 24,000 now. Since 1995 it has opened three comprehensive high schools - Lancaster, Knight and Eastside, which is still under construction - and is gaining 1,200 to 1,500 students a year.

Overall, builders are planning more than 20,000 new homes inside the high school district boundaries, Vierra said.

``We've got a lot of students coming our way,'' Vierra said.