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Westside Gets Extra Students School District Plans to Add Some Portable Classrooms

Posted on: Wednesday, 31 August 2005, 00:00 CDT

LANCASTER - Westside Union School District officials are making plans to add portable classrooms after unexpectedly large numbers of pupils enrolled in kindergarten classes and at Leona Valley School.

With 150 more pupils than expected districtwide, officials think parents were attracted by Leona Valley School adding grades six, seven and eight and by kindergartens districtwide expanding to a full-day format rather than having morning and afternoon sessions.

At Leona Valley School, officials anticipated an enrollment of 90 students but signed up nearly 150, which is about double last year's student population.

"For that particular location, that's a huge increase, especially where there is no new housing," Superintendent Regina Rossall said. "We think some of them were previously on transfers to other districts because of not having middle-school-aged students there. Some of them may have been home-schooled."

Districtwide, kindergarten enrollment is up by about 65 students. At Valley View School in west Lancaster, there are 105 kindergartners, 15 more than expected.

"It's due to all-day kindergarten. It brought back people who generally send their kids to private school. And then there were parents who didn't think half-day was worthwhile," trustee Gwen Farrell said.

Teachers and portable classrooms will be added in the next two weeks at Leona Valley and Valley View to accommodate the additional students. Westside classes started Aug. 15.

Westside had to shift teachers out of Anaverde Hills School, the temporary, 18-classroom campus that Westside is leasing from the Palmdale School District to house students from the 5,000-home Anaverde master-planning community.

The school has 118 students, lower than the 250 the district had projected. Still, that figure is vastly better than the 24 students whose parents had registered two weeks before classes started.

The low registration prompted Westside to send out 20 administrative staffers door-to-door in the new Anaverde neighborhoods to alert residents about the school and its Aug. 15 start date.

"They went out and canvassed the neighborhood," Farrell said. "You hate to have them start late, and you hate to lease a school and not have any kids in it."

Westside is leasing the temporary campus from the Palmdale district for $136,000 for one year. Helping to fill out the campus are the district's home-schooling program and part of the district's special education program.

The 250-student estimate at Anaverde was based on information given to Westside by home-builders that there would be 400 homes built and occupied by the time school started. Closer to 140 homes have been occupied, Rossall said.

Westside and Anaverde's developer continue to negotiate on having a developer-built elementary school within the master-planned community.

Currently, children from Anaverde are being bused to the temporary campus in west Palmdale, south of the Antelope Valley Mall.

Karen Maeshiro, (661) 267-5744

karen.maeshiro(at)dailynews.com

Source: Daily News; Los Angeles, Calif.

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