TRADITIONAL SCHEDULES RETURN FEWER STUDENTS MEAN END OF YEAR-ROUND PLAN.

Byline: Naush Boghossian Staff Writer

GLENDALE - Three elementary schools will shift from year-round calendars to traditional summer vacation schedules in the 2005-06 school year, a result of declining district enrollment, officials said.

John Muir, Balboa and John Marshall elementary schools will be the first in the Glendale Unified School District to revert back to the traditional schedule of nine months in school with a three-month summer vacation.

The year-round calendar was adopted to ease campus crowding.

``The schools have declined in enrollment and it is difficult to run a four-track, year-round calendar for them because there aren't enough students to offer enough grade levels on each track,'' said Alice Petrossian, assistant superintendent of educational services.

``There will be some cost savings as well, and it will be good for staff and students because they will all be on the same calendar.''

Muir is expected to drop from about 950 students to 785 in 2007-08; Marshall from 677 to 632; and Balboa from 619 to 577.

The school district had experienced student population increases since 1984, forcing it to resort to multitrack, year-round schools in which about one-quarter of students are on vacation. Students attend school for three months, followed by one month of vacation.

But the district's population has been dropping for about four years, a trend school officials believe is caused by the city's high housing prices pushing younger families to more affordable communities.

A traditional calendar would allow the district to save money since it would not have to operate a campus for the entire year.

The district does not yet have any cost-saving estimates, but they will save money since some employees will be working fewer days during the year.

``As the enrollment decline continues, there will be some positions where we will no longer have a need at those sites,'' Petrossian said, but she emphasized that nobody will lose his or her job. ``Decline in enrollment brings about a review of the staffing ratios.''

Parents seem to be taking the coming change in stride.

``There's going to be more interaction within the whole school and the parents will see the same students within a continuous nine-month schedule,'' said Aileen Barin, Muir's PTA president, whose daughter is in the fifth grade.

The schedule change will not affect her as much since her daughter would be tutored at the school during her days off. ``She will miss the tutoring, but I don't think it'll be that hard.''

The enrollment decline bucks the trend in nearby communities where districts are scrambling to build schools to handle the student populations.

In Santa Clarita, there are no more year-round schools this year, largely due to the school district building schools to accommodate the population boom.

Also, the Los Angeles Unified School District, struggling with overpopulation, is being forced to build new schools to handle the overflow.

The drawback to a traditional calendar is that the campuses will not be able to continue their tutoring program, in which off-track students come to school on their vacations to be tutored - a program that Muir Principal Amaly Avakian said has proved to be quite effective.

But some parents could find the new schedule more accommodating, she said.

``For some parents it's going to be a blessing because their children are going to be on the same calendar and, for example, it's hard on family vacations if they're on different calendars,'' Avakian said. ``But for others, they might like to have their children home at different times.''

It's just a matter of families, teachers and students getting used to the new schedule, Avakian said.

``It's going to be different for us. Some of our new teachers have not worked a traditional calendar, so it's going to be different for them,'' she said. ``It's rejuvenating to have three months on and one month off, but we'll learn how to do the old schedule again.''

Naush Boghossian, [phone]

naush.boghossian(at)dailynews.com