PALMDALE ENJOYS EXTRA SCHOOL SPACE TWO SITES GENERATE CASH THROUGH LEASING.

Byline: KAREN MAESHIRO Staff Writer

PALMDALE -- While other school districts are scrambling to find ways to ease school overcrowding, the Palmdale School District finds itself in the enviable position of having two school sites to spare.

One campus near the Antelope Valley Mall is being leased for a second year by Westside Union School District's Anaverde Hills School.

And the Antelope Valley Union High School District might be interested in using another Palmdale site near 40th Street East and Avenue S.

That eastside campus was used by the high school district last year for six months to house Eastside High School's first freshman class while Eastside's own temporary campus in Lancaster at 35th Street East and Avenue J-8 was readied for occupancy.

``If we can lease it out and bring some money into the general fund, that's fine,'' Palmdale board President Sheldon Epstein said. ``We were fortunate to have the foresight to look at these things and establish them.''

Palmdale's board decided at its July 11 meeting to lease out the eastside campus to anyone who's interested.

The high school district, just coming off a defeat in June of its $177.5 million bond measure that would have built two new high schools, will look into using the eastside campus again.

``We are exploring that,'' high school district Deputy Superintendent Jeff Foster said.

The eastside site has two office buildings, a cafeteria and multipurpose room, and classroom space to hold up to 2,000 students.

Palmdale has used it as a temporary site for schools when its permanent campuses were being built.

``This particular site has always been used to stage new schools. We are not staging new schools at this moment. We just opened Los Amigos, Palmdale Learning Plaza and Desert Willow schools. For that reason, we are leasing spaces at the moment we don't need,'' interim Palmdale Superintendent Roger Gallizzi said.

Palmdale had looked at other options for the eastside site, such as opening a sixth-grade center, moving an alternative school there, or opening a new school, but found them not feasible.

The cost of opening a school there would be about $500,000.

``Several options were just not feasible to do in this late stage of the game,'' Gallizzi said.

Westside last year paid Palmdale $136,000 to lease the former Palmdale Learning Plaza campus near the mall for students who live in the Anaverde master-planned community in southwest Palmdale.

The lease has been renewed for the upcoming school year.

Westside has an agreement with the Anaverde developer for Antelope Valley's first developer-built school. Start of construction of the school has been delayed because of a disagreement between the developer and the city of Palmdale.

Westside's $67.5 million school bond measure also was defeated in June, failing to garner the necessary 55 percent of the vote.

karen.maeshiro(at)dailynews.com

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