SCHOOL SIGN-UP JOCKEYING CONCLUDES; PARENTS DECAMP, AWAIT `TRACK' RESULT.

Byline: Mary Schubert Daily News Staff Writer

The districtwide slumber party is over but parents who camped out at their kids' schools for up to two days remained in suspense Monday, awaiting tallies of the year-round registration forms.

Results of the multitrack sign-ups, held over the weekend at six schools in the Newhall district, will be released in mid-March for the school year that will begin in July for 75 percent of the students and August for the other 25 percent. Parents began lining up as much as 48 hours before Saturday's 3 p.m. registration, turning school grounds into campgrounds.

Now those parents, who gave up workdays and half their weekend to sign up for their favorite schedule, must wait several weeks more to find out whether their children will be on the blue, green, yellow or red ``track'' of alternating school and vacation time - three months on, one month off.

Kelly Glover said her husband Andy camped out for 31 hours because they have three daughters whom they hope can all be on the same school schedule. ``He got rained on (and) completely soaked,'' she said.

If misery loves company, there was no shortage of either, Glover said. ``For 31 hours, people just sat there talking about multitrack and how much they hate it,'' she said.

The Newhall School District has 5,900 students at its seven schools, most of which - except Old Orchard Elementary - are so crowded that year-round scheduling was the only remaining option until money to build an eighth school can be raised. Public school bond measures are tough to pass at both the state and local level, requiring approval of two-thirds of the electorate.

Parents had plenty of time on their hands to speculate. ``There was some discussion that (the district might) reintroduce a school bond measure . . . and (the switch to year-round) was kind of strategically done,'' Glover added. In this scenario, the theory is that parents ``will go ahead and pay the bond and raise their taxes just to get their kids out of the multitrack system,'' she said.

Ilona Valaika , who has three children attending Meadows Elementary, said she wished the school district had borrowed a technique from the city parks department. Those who want to sign up for classes must mail a registration form that may not be postmarked before a specific date.

``If I had my druthers, I would have rather just mailed that form. You kind of kiss it for luck and throw it in the mailbox,'' Valaika said.

She was most concerned about coordinating the schedules of her three elementary school children with a fourth sibling, now in seventh grade. The William S. Hart Union High School District operates on the traditional September-to-June calendar.

Valaika said she requested the red track, which has vacations in March, July and half of October and half of November. As No. 122 to register at Meadows, she's not sure whether she'll get her first choice.

``I thought it was a waste of effort for everybody to stand in line,'' Valaika said. ``Personally, I think if they would have taken a poll and had everybody (write down) their preference . . . it might have turned out that everybody would have gotten their first choice without having to do this.''

School board member Philip Ellis Jr. was No. 115 in line to sign up his first-grader for the red track at Valencia Valley Elementary. He said he got an earful from parents about the registration system.

``A lot of parents would have rather done a lottery. They were surprised that people were lining up as early as they did,'' Ellis said. ``For people to come on Thursday afternoon at a couple schools was ludicrous.''

Ellis said the district officials and the committee members who organized the registration felt they were in a no-win situation, destined to have unhappy parents no matter which method was used for the sign-ups.

``I had one mother tell me on the soccer field a couple months ago that she would sue if she didn't get her choice,'' he said.