L.B. Schools Look to New Sites to Handle Enrollment Growth

LONG BEACH —  The Long Beach Unified School District has authorized district representatives to begin negotiating to lease two new school sites to deal with a burgeoning student enrollment expected to reach an all-time high by 1990.

One of the sites is the 23-acre, 34-classroom Oak Middle School on Oak Street off Katella Avenue in the nearby Los Alamitos Unified School District, which is scheduled to close in June due to that district’s declining enrollment. The other is an 11-acre vacant lot owned by Long Beach City College near the college’s Pacific Coast campus, where the school district would use portable classrooms.

Officials of the 64,000-student Long Beach district have projected an increase in enrollment of 2,400 by next fall. Within five years, they say, enrollment will exceed 75,000, the most in the district’s history. The previous peak occurred in 1963 when enrollment of Baby Boom-era students reached about 74,000.

District officials say they hope to accommodate as many as 1,400 students at the Los Alamitos site. About 370 Long Beach students now attend Lee-Rossmoor Elementary School, another campus leased from the Los Alamitos school district since last year at an annual rate of $60,000.

While the district hopes to have the Oak Street site available by next fall, said district spokesman Richard Van der Laan, the city college site would probably not be usable until 1988 due to the need to erect portable classrooms. The problem is exacerbated, he said, because the state will not pay for classroom construction on leased sites.

Even with the use of both sites, Van der Laan said, the district will face a classroom shortage by the fall of 1987.