REDRAWING BOUNDARIES PALMDALE DISTRICT AIMING TO BALANCE ENROLLMENT AT CAMPUSES.

Byline: KAREN MAESHIRO

Staff Writer

PALMDALE -- Attendance boundaries will be redrawn in the Palmdale School District under a plan to balance enrollment among campuses.

Some schools, such as Golden Poppy, are jam-packed with children, while classrooms sit empty at Juniper Intermediate and Yucca schools, where student populations have been declining.

"For us at Golden Poppy, it's good because we don't have classrooms. We are using the music room as a classroom. We don't have any room," said Noemi Espinoza, PTA president and the school's nurse. "We are growing and growing."

The district has formed a committee to come up with recommended changes, which, if approved, would take effect the next school year.

Public hearings will be held to gather input from parents, but no dates have been set.

"Change is always difficult, but we clearly need to meet the needs of all students across the entire district by making sure students are housed in a fair and equitable manner and that schools are not overcrowded," interim Superintendent Roger Gallizzi said.

Gallizzi said some schools may not be affected.

The last time the district made wholesale changes to attendance zones was in 2002-03, when it switched from a year-round school calendar to a traditional schedule, Deputy Superintendent Lori Ordway-Peck said.

District officials intended to revise the boundaries two years ago when three new schools opened but put it off because enrollment had begun to level off, Ordway-Peck said.

"Unfortunately this year, growth is so sporadic in some areas. There are crowded schools and empty schools," Ordway-Peck said. "We are looking to do lines to prevent children from crossing busy streets. We are trying to stabilize enrollment and do it for the long-term so, we won't have to do it again so soon."

Golden Poppy, a campus for pupils in kindergarten through eighth grade, opened in 2004 near 60th Street East and Avenue R. Its enrollment has increased because of housing construction in the area.

The school this year has more than 900 students, about 200 more than were expected. With no room, new students in seventh and eighth grades are being sent to Shadow Hills Intermediate about a mile away.

"We are hoping that we don't have to start sending existing classes to other schools," Ordway-Peck said.

Many of the new homes are large with double master bedrooms, so some families may be doubling up in one single-family abode, officials believe.

The school switched from a full-day kindergarten to a half-day kindergarten in January to accommodate more pupils, Espinoza said.

Students have had to change classrooms and get new teachers midyear as more children streamed into the school, Espinoza said.

At Juniper Intermediate, enrollment has shrunk for two straight years. The district had expected more than 1,000 students this year, but just 900 showed up.

Yucca School has 750 students, down from the 900 that was projected, Ordway-Peck said.

"The idea is to move boundaries here and there, to kind of even out some attendance zones," Gallizzi said. "There are parts of the district where kids get bused past a school to go to another school. Those kinds of things will be looked at, too."

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"For us at Golden Poppy, it's good because we don't have classrooms. We are using the music room as a classroom. We don't have any room," says Noemi Espinoza, PTA president and nurse at Golden Poppy, above.

Jeff Goldwater/Staff Photographer