The Hermosa Beach City School District is in trouble.
Test scores have steadily risen in the past few years, but so has enrollment. Valley and View Schools are over-flowing with young children, and the school district has nowhere to put them.
“In the mid-1950s we had about 1400 students,” School Board member Jack Burns said at a recent joint meeting between the school board and the City Council. “We’re at about 1400 now. We were operating out of six locations at that time…We have two now and we’re working with the same amount of students.”
He explained that after the 1980s, enrollment started to decrease and the district decided to sell the surplus school sites.
“Fortunately the city benefited because most of them went to the city—that’s how we have so many parks around town,” said Burns. “But it set back the school district because we had nothing to fall back on if enrollment went back up. They didn’t necessarily have that vision of ‘what if.’ At least we held on to North School.”
In order to accommodate the growing number of students, used modular classrooms [portables] will be installed over the summer at both Valley and View.
“This is a short term fix, it’s not an ongoing permanent solution,” said Burns. “In the next few years we’re going to struggle to handle any further expansion. It’s not that we can’t find another nook or cranny to put some people – just physically we can’t do it. The cafeteria isn’t big enough, there aren’t enough restrooms and there’s a safety component.”
Even though increased enrollment is a good thing for school revenue, the tightly packed classrooms are not a boon for the students or teachers.
To counter the problem and find a solution, a facilities committee was formed to conduct research and assess the data as well as find alternative school sites within the city.
“They did not identify any property that was readily available,” said Burns.
The Time Warner Building on Valley Drive was discussed but determined to not be a good fit, mostly because it’s not for sale and it’s in close proximity to Valley. The Community Center was also discussed, but was sold by the school in 1977. The committee also attempted to identify additional land swap options, but within Hermosa’s city lines none were identified.
“Since that’s [North School] the last remaining location, that’s where we need to focus our energy,” Burns said. “The question is, do we rebuild or do we remodel?”
The configuration of the site, originally built in 1929 and retrofitted after an earthquake in 1933, is also a bit strange.
“It’s like an old jack-o-lantern with cut-outs of old homes,” said Burns. “But as far back as we can go, it’s always been that way.”
The 4.3 acres of adjacent Valley Park belongs to the district, but rebuilding on that land could be complicated.
“This is something we need to discuss and we have to move on in short order,” Burns said.
He added that the last time the school went out for a bond was in 1957, when the last retrofits were done on the remaining buildings.
“The school district’s basically been self-sufficient for 60 years,” said Burns. “Unfortunately how they were supporting that was every so often selling off property.”
At the moment, the district is 200 – 300 students over capacity, and because the district is required to accept all incoming students, something needs to be done.
“Something about what you’re sharing tonight changes in my mind the pitch to the community about a bond,” Councilmember Michael DiVirgilio said. “You can’t turn a student away, and people will start to put that logic together and I think that makes a compelling reason to be in favor of a reasonable bond.”
Burns said that funding for the project will need to be figured out in the near future, and that it will need to be a community process.
“It’s more a question of ‘what are we doing to do as a community?’ Because the message we send out is ‘I don’t know if we want families moving in here because we can’t accommodate them in our schools,’” said Burns. “If we can boast and pat ourselves on the backs on all these other accomplishments we have in town, but we’ve got kids in used trailers, I don’t know if we’ve come full circle as a city.” ER
