RIORDAN CALLS SCHOOL SESSION.

Byline: David R. Baker Staff Writer

With the Los Angeles school district far behind schedule in building new schools, Mayor Richard Riordan will convene a meeting of education officials and outside experts today to discuss a plan to have private companies take over the work.

The plan calls for private companies to locate, design and build the campuses and then sell them to the school district. Although the proposal is still in its infancy, backers say it would give the Los Angeles Unified School District a realistic chance of building 150 schools needed for very young students. The current system, they say, is far too slow to work.

``How long does it take them to open a middle school? Nine years. So if there's 150 schools they need, it's never going to happen,'' said O'Malley Miller, chairman of the district's Primary Center Task Force.

Although insisting the idea would require significant oversight, several school board members said it held promise.

``I'm ready to hear good ideas from wherever they come, and this sounds like it has potential,'' said board member Caprice Young, who has spent much of her first year in office hunting for places to build new schools.

The proposal focuses on primary centers, a type of school designed for very young students.

With the district unable to build high schools - which typically require 20 to 25 acres - the district's new management team in November proposed building 150 two- to three-acre primary centers instead. Some existing middle schools would then be converted into high schools and many elementary campuses modified to include grades four through eight.

The primary centers are cheaper and easier to build, because small parcels are relatively easy to find.

Only four primary centers were completed in 2 1/2 years, Miller said.

``We have this thing out there called the free market, and it's pretty efficient,'' he said.

Under Miller's proposal, the district would tell developers that it needed a primary center in a specific neighborhood and give key requirements, such as size. Companies would then be asked to bid on the project.

They would also be responsible for securing bank loans and meeting the district's specifications.

The U.S. Postal Service, Miller said, already uses much the same process. The meeting today will explore whether any legal obstacles prevent the district from doing likewise.

School board member David Tokofsky called the idea interesting and said the district could avoid the environmental and other problems that plagued the Belmont High School project by beefing up inspection and having the district's auditors keep a close watch over spending.