Construction of new schools in the San Fernando Valley - what is done and what needs to be done (Los Angeles: 2011)

[Vicman]

Hi! I was doing some research on LAUSD schools in the San Fernando Valley.

I found there are two K-8 schools that are planned to be built in the Valley by 2011:
* One in Porter Ranch: Project Details
* One in Sylmar: Project Details

There are also three scheduled high schools:
* One in Granada Hills: Project Details (probably will be similar to Northridge Academy)
* One in the City of San Fernando: Project Details
* Fulton College Preparatory School: Project Details

As for other areas:
There are no zoned middle schools in Reseda.

The middle schools serving portions of Reseda are:
* Mulholland Middle School (Lake Balboa)
* Northridge Middle School (Northridge area)
* Gaspar de Portola Middle School (Tarzana)
* Sutter Middle School (Winnetka)

What are their populations (as of 2007-2008)?
* Mulholland: 1,857 LAUSD School Profile
* Portola: 1,779 LAUSD School Profile
* Sutter: 1,619 LAUSD School Profile
* Northridge: 1,117 LAUSD School Profile

I think LAUSD could build a middle school in Reseda particularly to reduce the populations of Mulholland, Portola, and Sutter. Any areas of Encino zoned to Mulholland should be zoned to Portola and/or Hesby Oaks.

Then we have Valley Glen. Valley Glen is divided by two middle schools: Madison (in North Hollywood) and Millikan (in Sherman Oaks)

The schools have:
* Madison: 1,877: LAUSD School Profile
* Millikan: 1,652: LAUSD School Profile

Madison just got relieved by the opening of Romer MS. But I think another MS in Valley Glen could be a good idea. Then we could rezone all of Sherman Oaks to Millikan (instead of Van Nuys Middle).

Also I think Sherman Oaks and Tarzana/Encino should get their own dedicated public high schools. - I know U.S. Grant is fairly close to Sherman Oaks, but it is overfilled and I think Sherman Oaks residents would love to have a high school separate from Van Nuys and Grant.

[Charles]

What I'd like to see is a table of school capacity and school enrollment for all the schools.

For example School X has a capacity of 300 and an enrollment of 280 (underutilized). School Y has a capacity of 500 and an enrollment of 530 (overfilled).

With that, we might be able to see if building new schools is a solution or perhaps redistributing students or consolidation with or without additional construction.

[Vicman]

Originally Posted by Charles

What I'd like to see is a table of school capacity and school enrollment for all the schools.

For example School X has a capacity of 300 and an enrollment of 280 (underutilized). School Y has a capacity of 500 and an enrollment of 530 (overfilled).

With that, we might be able to see if building new schools is a solution or perhaps redistributing students or consolidation with or without additional construction.

I know Dallas ISD has that on its site, but I am not sure where to find LAUSD's utilization tables.

[LaoTzuMindFu]

Originally Posted by Vicman

Also I think Sherman Oaks and Tarzana/Encino should get their own dedicated public high schools. - I know U.S. Grant is fairly close to Sherman Oaks, but it is overfilled and I think Sherman Oaks residents would love to have a high school separate from Van Nuys and Grant.

Sounds like you just want to have a school where there arent many Mexican students. Am I right?

There is no room for new schools in those areas. Sherman Oaks residents can still attend Grant, North Hollywood High and even Van Nuys. That is three public high schools serving a rather small part of LA. Notre Dame is a private catholic school in Sherman Oaks as well.

Encino/Tarzana residents can still attend Birmingham High, Reseda High or even Taft if they live in western part of Tarzana. Thats still three high schools that service another small area of LA county. Its plenty.

LAUSD will not plan to expand into the areas you mentioned because:

1. There is no need for it.
2. The high cost of acquiring land in those areas. The money is better spent elsewhere in LAUSD schools that need it.
3. There are other outlining areas where overcrowding is more severe so they should be at the top of the list when it comes to expansion.

[the one]

a lot of new schools are going up thru out the district. but the valley really isnt the priority. the priority thus far has been in the south region of the district. the south region and the central region.
the most crowded schools are in the central city and south east region of the district. many primary centers, middle schools and high schools have been built to relieve the old over crowded schools in the east, south and south east.

a new database was created for school API scores and SAT scores and enrollment at LAtimes.com. in the category of HIgh schools, which generally have thousands of students, a few middle schools cracked the ranks of high schools. they were Gage Middle school and Nimitz middle school. they had more than 3000 students each. both of those are in HP(huntington park). south gate middle also had more than 3000 kids. south east middle school opened in 2006 to relieve it.
south east middle and south east high opened to relieve crowding at south gate high and LA jordan. at first i thought it odd to have so many high schools next to each other. jordan and south east are just on the other side of the tracks from eachother. but then i learned that the plan was to get students back into a traditional school year and not the staggered year round system that is in place now. it made sense.

i too would like to see by how much these schools exceed their intended capacity. the schools in the southeast are older and were built when there werent that many students. im not sure what the intended capacity for Bell HS was, but it was built in 1925. a time when the area was not so dense. it now serves 4300 students. roosevelt and garfield, equally as old, also serve 4700 and 4600 students respectively.

heres the link

Highest School Enrollments in Los Angeles County - California Schools Guide - LATimes

a lot of our schools are over crowded and just now are the new schools having an effect. i expect scores and tests to improve as the schools become less and less crowded.

[Vicman]

DaBeez: No.

By "Sherman Oaks" and "Tarzana"/"Encino" I am referring to all areas within the respective "Sherman Oaks, CA" and "Tazana, CA" and "Encino, CA" neighborhood councils. There are a lot of people in those zones of different socioeconomic groups. It's that it would be more heavily concentrated in upper classes and more attractive to those parents.

But more heavily is relative, as seen by the demographics of these two Houston high schools:
* Lamar - http://www.schooldigger.com/go/TX/sc...12/school.aspx - Located in a wealthy area
* Austin - http://www.schooldigger.com/go/TX/sc...93/school.aspx - Located in a gentrifying, working class area
** So a Sherman Oaks HS and a Tarzana/Encino HS could have demographics like Lamar over here - Or like LA's Taft or El Camino Real High Schools

LAUSD can then offer magnet programs from these schools to attract people from other areas who are then required to participate in special academic programs. I understand that a lot of lower income schools have societal problems (such as lack of parental oversight, poorly educated parents, bad neighborhood influences, etc. - see more at Los Angeles Unified School District: Inner-City Teacher Blues ), but people who have parents who put them in magnet programs often do not suffer from the societal problems.

As for "small" - http://www.shermanoaksnc.org/images/soncmap.gif = Sherman Oaks Neighborhood Council - this has five elementary schools and one middle school within it. This is not small.

EDIT: Encino: http://www.encinocouncil.org/images/encinomap.jpg - How is this "small"? - It has three elementary schools and a K-8
Tarzana: http://www.tarzananc.org/images/map.jpg - Not small either - it has four elementary schools and a middle school

Also: "Encino/Tarzana residents can still attend Birmingham High, Reseda High or even Taft if they live in western part of Tarzana. Thats still three high schools that service another small area of LA county. Its plenty." - Plenty is relative. In a rural, mountainous area one high school serving many square miles is plenty. But in dense cities "plenty" depends on the population densities. The San Fernando Valley is getting an influx of lower income residents, so of course new schools will need to be built in the central valley. But I argue that we could also relieve the central valley by building schools for residents south of Burbank Boulevard (in Sherman Oaks's case) and south of Victory Boulevard (for Encino/Tarzana)

Originally Posted by DaBeez

Sounds like you just want to have a school where there arent many Mexican students. Am I right?

There is no room for new schools in those areas. Sherman Oaks residents can still attend Grant, North Hollywood High and even Van Nuys. That is three public high schools serving a rather small part of LA. Notre Dame is a private catholic school in Sherman Oaks as well.

Encino/Tarzana residents can still attend Birmingham High, Reseda High or even Taft if they live in western part of Tarzana. Thats still three high schools that service another small area of LA county. Its plenty.

LAUSD will not plan to expand into the areas you mentioned because:

1. There is no need for it.
2. The high cost of acquiring land in those areas. The money is better spent elsewhere in LAUSD schools that need it.
3. There are other outlining areas where overcrowding is more severe so they should be at the top of the list when it comes to expansion.

LAUSD plans to build another high school to relieve Garfield.
* Esteban E. Torres High School: http://www.laschools.org/news/item?item_id=4490327
By now South East High School should be kicking in:
* South Gate HS demographic history: http://www.schooldigger.com/go/CA/sc...64/school.aspx
* South East HS demographic history: http://www.schooldigger.com/go/CA/sc...88/school.aspx

Originally Posted by the one

i too would like to see by how much these schools exceed their intended capacity. the schools in the southeast are older and were built when there werent that many students. im not sure what the intended capacity for Bell HS was, but it was built in 1925. a time when the area was not so dense. it now serves 4300 students. roosevelt and garfield, equally as old, also serve 4700 and 4600 students respectively.

heres the link

Highest School Enrollments in Los Angeles County - California Schools Guide - LATimes

a lot of our schools are over crowded and just now are the new schools having an effect. i expect scores and tests to improve as the schools become less and less crowded.

[Vicman]

Also, for another comparison we have:
* Santee: Santee Education Complex School, Los Angeles California / CA school information and ethnic makeup
Which took students from:
* Manuals Arts: Manual Arts Senior High School, Los Angeles California / CA school information and ethnic makeup - I guess the school then got kids who were originally bussed, because the population count did not change drastically
* Jefferson: Thomas Jefferson Senior High School, Los Angeles California / CA school information and ethnic makeup - Drastic reduction in the population, but it is still a very big campus

Bernstein High School, which opened this year, should relieve Hollywood High School. Roybal LC should relieve Belmont. How many new schools does LAUSD need to build in other areas before it can focus on the Valley?

Also LAUSD needs to convert University HS and its feeder schools into charters so they can "relieve" Palisades Charter HS, which is full of students trying to get better educations by going west.

[the one]

well, the money goes where the need is mostly. it seems like all of the local districts within LAUSD need money and books and seats. some areas just need it more than others. new schools are being built everywhere, except that there are more new school being built in the desperate areas first. this construction of schools is supposed to go on into 2012. then another phase will begin. by then the valley and all other local districts will have seen releived schools and better test scores. at least thats what the goal is.

on a side not, i do think some money is being lavished on certain projects. thats arts school in downtown for one. it seems like the district wanted to go all out with this construction. it went for aesthetics over practicality in some respect. so much money on all these edgy projects. it could have been very simple, but some construction plans are very elaborate.

its nice for the neighborhood. not for the pocket book.

[Vicman]

One other thing I noticed is that there is a bit of the Koreatown area that is zoned to Fairfax High School (the area around Harvard Elementary School) - was the zoning there to relieve Belmont HS and Los Angeles HS?

Should LAUSD rezone the area away from Fairfax and to Los Angeles HS or the Berendo cluster?