Panel Wants Schools Kept Despite Low Enrollment

A school district advisory committee has recommended that the Los Angeles school board not consider closing any of the 25 San Fernando Valley elementary schools that have low enrollments, a spokesman said Friday.

The recommendation of the Districtwide Underutilized School Sites Committee had been awaited by parents at Valley schools since December, when a formal list of low-enrollment schools was released by the district.

During the past five years, acting on the recommendation of the committee, the school board has closed 19 low-enrollment schools in the Valley. The district considers an elementary school to have low enrollment if it has fewer than 300 “resident” students. That does not include students who are bused in from outside the school’s attendance zone under special programs.

The committee said none of the Valley schools should be closed because some are being used as “receiver” campuses to relieve crowding at other schools, others were granted five-year closure exemptions when adjacent schools were closed, and in some cases the routes that reassigned students would have to walk to new schools would be unsafe.

Another reason for the recommendation was a report released last month estimating that 70,000 more students will be enrolled in district schools in the next five years. The report said these students will for the most part attend already crowded inner-city schools. School planners believe it likely that the district will need to continue to transport students from these areas to the under-enrolled schools in the Valley and other suburban areas.

The list of under-enrolled schools was drawn up at the request of board member Rita Walters. The committee listed 58 schools throughout the district as under-enrolled.

The Valley schools on that list and their communities are: Anatola, Van Nuys; Calahan, Northridge; Calvert, Woodland Hills; Hamlin, Canoga Park; Lemay, Van Nuys; Serrania, Woodland Hills; Brainard, Lake View Terrace; Calabash, Woodland Hills; Lanai Road, Encino; Nestle, Tarzana; Stonehurst, Sun Valley; Topanga Canyon, Topanga; Woodland Hills; Beckford, Northridge; Carpenter, Studio City; Danube, Granada Hills; El Oro, Granada Hills; Gault, Van Nuys; Mountain View, Tujunga; Rio Vista, North Hollywood; Stagg, Van Nuys; Vanalden, Reseda; Van Gogh, Granada Hills; Lorne, Northridge, and Justice, Canoga Park.

The committee recommended that the 33 other Los Angeles schools remain open for the same reasons as the Valley campuses. No schools were recommended for closure.

The committee will forward its recommendations to the school board.