LAUSD VOWS TO DELIVER TEACHERS NEEDED TO FILL CLASSROOMS BOND FUNDS WILL BUILD.

Byline: Helen Gao Staff Writer

With passage of local and state school bond measures, Los Angeles Unified School District officials acknowledged Wednesday that they have a big job ahead of them: keeping their campaign promises to build schools and recruiting enough teachers to staff them.

Voters on Tuesday approved Measure K, LAUSD's $3.35 billion bond issue, along with Proposition 47, the state's $13.05 billion bond issue. Both measures will help fund construction of new public school facilities to help ease overcrowding.

Locally, Proposition 47 will provide $33 million to the nine-campus Los Angeles Community College District, including $6.7 million for Mission College and $14.9 million for Valley College, as well as $14.7 million for California State University, Northridge.

``This funding will make significant and much-needed investment in our community colleges,'' said Mark Drummond, chancellor of the Los Angeles Community College District.

Proposition 47 is also expected to provide up to $2 billion in matching funds to the LAUSD for school construction. Combining the state funding with its $3.35 billion bond, the district plans to complete 120 new schools and 79 expansions within the decade.

``This is going to be the largest construction project in the Western United States for the next three to five years. It's a tremendous challenge,'' said Jim McConnell, LAUSD's chief facilities executive.

``We are going to deliver this project right,'' he vowed, speaking at a news conference Wednesday at Lankershim Elementary School in North Hollywood, where an eight-classroom addition is under construction.

Los Angeles Unified already has $215 million worth of projects approved by the state for funding, and state officials plan to start distributing Proposition 47 funds starting Dec. 11.

While they are building schools, district officials are also scrambling to recruit 20,000 teachers and 200 principals during the next five years to staff the new campuses.

``You've got to find efficiencies within which you can use present resources and personnel in a better way,'' Superintendent Roy Romer said. ``It's going to be very challenging for us to open new schools, to find new principals, new janitors.''

Tom Boysen, LAUSD's chief operating officer, said plans are under way to quadruple the number of candidates in the teacher intern program from 500 to 2,000 a year and expand the year-old teaching fellows program to 1,000 students per year, up from the current enrollment of 150.

Other parts of the plan propose shortening the teacher credentialing process from two years to one.

``I think we are gearing up at just the right time to make full use of the new schools and attract quality people into the school district,'' said Boysen.

Joe Braun with the Los Angeles Educational Partnership, a nonprofit group working to improve education, said the recruitment challenge would be daunting in light of the No Child Left Behind Act.

The 1-year-old federal legislation requires school districts to hire ``highly qualified'' teachers to staff all schools by 2005.

``Buildings aren't going to help us a lot if we don't have qualified teachers to put in them,'' Braun said.

Officials estimate there will be an additional 85,000 new students during the next five years, mainly in high schools.

Currently, more than 300,000 students in the district attend multitrack campuses because there are not enough classrooms. About 77,000 students are bused outside their neighborhoods to attend school.

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LAUSD Superintendent Roy Romer joins third-grade students at Lankershim Elementary School to speak on the passage of Measure K, a $3.35 billion school construction bond.

Andy Holzman/Staff Photographer

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