ORANGE : Crowding Reported at East-Side Schools

Elementary schools in Orange Unified School District’s east side have reached maximum capacity and are threatening to overflow, school officials said.

“It’s overcrowded,” Assistant Supt. Arthur J. Townley said.

The problem is growth in the area and lack of schools, said officials, who added that local pupils living outside Orange Unified may have to be transferred back to their home districts.

At Imperial Elementary School in Anaheim, for example, parents of 12 pupils have been told that their children may have to leave.

Most of them have been at Imperial for at least two years and some as long as four, Principal Marnie Frasure said.

“Of course, they don’t want to leave any more than we want to lose those children,” said Frasure, who has been fielding calls from parents all week.

Attendance at Imperial has jumped from 535 to 640 this past year alone. Most teachers have 30 pupils in each class, but some have as many as 33, Frasure said.

The elementary schools in that region are year-round, a situation that makes it difficult for some children to pick up their studies midway through a school year. The year began July 25, and the first quarter will end Sept. 26.

Officials will take a final count Sept. 12 and then decide if anyone has to be bumped. “We won’t know until we see the whites of their eyes,” Townley said.

He said that construction of new schools is unlikely because, voters having failed to support a state bond measure in June, a local bond issue is unlikely to succeed.

The worst-case scenario would involve busing children from the east side to other schools in the district. “That’s not very palatable,” he added.