WESTSIDE EYES OPTIONS FOR GROWTH BOND FAILURE MAY MEAN RESCHEDULING, BOUNDARY SHIFTS.

Byline: KAREN MAESHIRO Staff Writer

LANCASTER -- Westside Union School District trustees are considering pursuing a new bond issue, adopting a multitrack year-round schedule, and changing school attendance boundaries after the defeat of the district's $67.5 million bond measure.

Other options to deal with school overcrowding and a growing student population include installing more portable classrooms, disallowing student transfers into the district and between schools, and returning to half-day kindergarten.

``They will be looking at whether to go out for another bond or not. That's one option they have,'' Superintendent Regina Rossall said. ``In the meantime, they need to be working on alternate housing plans.''

Options will be reviewed at a board meeting at 7 p.m. Tuesday at Hillview Middle School.

Westside's $67.5 million Measure K got 52.3 percent of the vote on June 6, short of the 55 percent required to pass. It would have raised annual property taxes about $27 per $100,000 of assessed valuation.

Expecting 4,000 more students in the next five years, Westside officials wanted to pass the bond measure to raise enough money to build three elementary schools and a middle school, replace portable buildings with permanent ones and upgrade existing clasrooms and school facilities.

Any changes approved by the board would take effect in the 2007-08 school year, Rossall said.

Rossall said the district is considering a four-track, year-round calendar for four of the district's 11 schools: Del Sur, Esperanza, Rancho Vista and Sundown.

``Those are the schools that are projected to be the most impacted,'' Rossall said.

The other schools would remain on the current calendar, which begins in mid-August and ends around mid-June.

The district also will look at changing attendance boundaries for the four schools.

``Boundary changes are going to be essential to level out enrollment throughout the district,'' board president Gwen Farrell said.

Adding more portable classrooms at each school is another possibility. Some schools are projected to reach student enrollments of 1,200 pupils, even though they were designed to hold between 600 and 750 students, Rossall said.

Esperanza School, which opened three years ago, now has 1,150 students.

Returning to half-day kindergarten will free up more classroom space, Rossall said.

In the 2005-06 school year, Westside switched to full-day kindergarten after parents suggested that, with bigger class sizes due to budget cuts, pupils could benefit from more class time.

``We have enough money to build one school, but we've got to determine whether we want to do that or add more classrooms,'' Farrell said.

Options under consideration, such as year-round schooling, have been considered before but were never adopted because they were not popular with parents.

``There are several options, but not all are sound for kids,'' Farrell said. ``They were options we didn't do before because they were not desirable. It costs more to do multitrack. The facilities suffer because there is no downtime for maintenance.''

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