School’s Enrollment Won’t Be Tied to Taxes

Parents of kindergartners in the booming Anaheim Hills may be jostling their neighbors for a slot in overcrowded Canyon Rim Elementary School, but they will not have to prove that their tax dollars paid for the building.

Orange Unified School District trustees dropped a plan that would have given priority to homeowners in the Mello-Roos tax district that paid for the school in accordance with a recent state law.

But administrators said Thursday that the law was passed after the school opened and does not apply to them. It resolved a contentious problem in the area because most of the tax district lies outside the attendance boundaries for Canyon Rim, which opened last year to high demand.

Many young families with 5-year-olds have moved into new developments in the area, and the school had to impose a limit of 124 kindergartners next year.

Trustee Martin Jacobson proposed a priority system that first admits the siblings of students already in the school and then opens up to everyone in the attendance area. The board voted unanimous support.

When Running Springs Elementary is operating in fall 1999, the crunch should be alleviated naturally, district officials said.