The Los Angeles Board of Education on Tuesday designated the field of an overcrowded east Hollywood middle school as the site of a new elementary campus, a plan that calls for building fields on a contaminated plot that the district repeatedly has passed over for previous projects.
An environmental consultant hired by the school district said the soil and underground water contamination on the site next to Virgil Middle School could be cleaned up for a "very preliminary estimate" of $10 million, which would include installation of an impermeable barrier to stop off-site pollution plumes from recontaminating the site.
The district will now begin more in-depth environmental analysis before construction begins.
"This is by no means an easy decision," said board President Monica Garcia, who visited the school Monday. "We have looked for every piece of land, and in this mid-Wilshire area . . . density is a challenge."
The search for a place to put the new school, known as Central Region Elementary School No. 20, has been a political minefield.
L.A. Unified district staff initially proposed expanding the site of a primary center and taking some homes that were part of the Eco Village, an environmentally friendly housing community that had once before staved off the building of a school on its site.
The group fought back again, filling public meetings and enlisting Los Angeles City Councilman Eric Garcetti to help kill the latest plan. Among their suggestions for a different location was the site across the street, at Virgil Middle School.
When Virgil teachers, parents and administrators learned about the plan recently, they applied their own political pressure.
Angry not only because of the toxics known to be on the site, the group also was concerned that the plan would create two schools separated by a fence, together housing nearly 2,000 children between ages 5 and 14 -- and that the noisy construction would make it hard for students at underperforming Virgil to improve their test scores.
Both groups spoke before the board Tuesday, as did the principal and parents of White House Place primary center, who said the board needed to quit looking and start building.
"My kids and my families have waited long enough for the construction of the new school," said Principal Rosa Eshaq, who did not mention the pollution on the future site.
