Schools Coping With Jammed Classrooms

Enrollment is up in the Fullerton School District, and schools are jammed with students, officials reported this week.

Because first-grade classes throughout the district were reduced to no more than 20 pupils per teacher, some teachers are teaching in portable buildings, auditoriums, campus media centers and libraries.

District officials said that more portable classrooms are on the way.

“Everyone is making the adjustment,” School Board President Rosamaria Gomez-Amaro said. The cramped quarters, she said, “are a major inconvenience, but only for a short period of time.”

She said the trade-off is smaller classes and more teachers. Teachers are happy about that, Gomez-Amaro said.

Valencia Park Elementary School reported the biggest increase in students. That school had 920 students enrolled on Monday. The number of pupils on the first Monday of school last year was 841.

Other schools reporting higher than expected enrollment include: Ladera Vista Junior High with 782 pupils, 63 more than last year; Sunset Lane Elementary School with 688 students, 60 more than last year, and Golden Hill Elementary School with 646 pupils, 52 more than last year.