District Renews Study on Opening 4 Closed Schools

The Los Angeles school district said Tuesday that only one of four schools under consideration for reopening would significantly relieve crowding in a rapidly growing area of the San Fernando Valley.

The school board on Monday voted to delay leasing the former Parthenia Street and Garden Grove elementary schools, as well as the former Hughes Junior High School, and ordered a study to determine whether reopening the facilities would reduce student crowding in the fast-growing central Valley. A fourth school to be studied, Burton Street Elementary School, is a district administrative office.

But Byron Kimball, director of the district’s building services division, said only the reopening of Parthenia, on Parthenia Street near Balboa Boulevard, would help to significantly reduce student crowding in the area.

District officials will study whether to reopen the Garden Grove school as a science and mathematics magnet school and the Hughes school as a facility for emotionally disturbed students. Officials said that reopening those schools would not relieve crowding because their area has the fewest school-age children in the district.

Parthenia, which was closed in 1984 because of low enrollment, could accommodate students from nearby Langdon Avenue, Plummer Street and Noble Avenue elementary schools, which are full, Kimball said. The district has estimated that it would cost about $1.3 million to reopen Parthenia, which can hold about 360 elementary school students.

The study, prompted by unanticipated student population growth in the area and scheduled to be completed in January, was approved on the recommendation of school board member Julie Korenstein, whose district includes the four schools. Last year, Korenstein called for a similar study and sought unsuccessfully to reopen the Prairie Avenue school in Northridge.

Korenstein said she hopes that the crowding of schools at the eastern edge of her district, caused in part by the addition of 3,200 students to Valley schools this year, will persuade board members to support her plan to reopen at least one school next year. During her 1987 election campaign, she promised that closed Valley schools would be reopened.

The study drew criticism from board member Leticia Quezada, who said the district could save the cost of reopening Parthenia by converting nearby schools to a year-round calender. District officials estimate that year-round schools expand enrollment 28% over those that operate for 9 months.

Korenstein said she would rather open Parthenia than require nearby crowded schools to go on year-round schedules.

Once it is finished, the study will be reviewed by a board subcommittee before being considered by the full board.