Junior High Schools

Simi Valley city and school officials will meet today to discuss a school district request for $6 million to build a new stadium at Royal High School and new gyms at three junior high schools. Mayor Greg Stratton and Councilwoman Judy Mikels will meet with school board members Judy Barry and Ken Ashton at 5:30 p.m. in the City Council conference room to work out preliminary details of the proposal.

Representatives from Glendale's Rosemont Junior High School will attend a ceremony hosted by President Reagan next week in Washington, D.C., honoring 212 secondary schools that have earned the U.S. Department of Education's highest award for academic excellence. Rosemont was selected as an "exemplary school" in a national competition based on test scores, student citizenship and general campus life.

The Capistrano Unified School District is considering a series of changes in how sixth-, seventh- and eighth-graders are taught. Harold Hester, a district administrator, said the changes might include exposing sixth-graders to more than one teacher while cutting back from six the number of teachers that seventh- and eighth-graders see daily.

Burbank School Board members say they are leaning toward establishing middle schools in the district, a plan that would create four-year high schools and elementary schools scaled back to kindergarten through fifth grade. At a meeting Wednesday evening, the board asked school district officials to furnish more information on the cost and implications of such a proposal.

With the city of Los Angeles just beginning to pick up the pieces after its worst civil unrest this century, more than 200 San Fernando Valley junior high school students, teachers and parents will come together this week to discuss ways to achieve harmony among people of different races and religions. The First Annual Human Relations Conference for Junior High Schools that is to convene tomorrow will feature a keynote address by Los Angeles Police Chief-designate Willie L. Williams.

High school students already face a battery of standardized tests on their way to college. Now, the college testing frenzy is reaching into middle school. The College Board, which owns the SAT, PSAT and other tests, plans to introduce an eighth-grade college assessment exam in 2010, a top College Board official said this week.

The decision to expand several San Fernando Valley high schools to accept freshmen will have a ripple effect on those campuses and associated junior high and elementary schools, necessitating changes in areas from curriculum to personnel, school district officials said Tuesday. Following the changes approved Monday by the Los Angeles Unified School District board, Granada Hills, John F.

In an effort to lessen the impact of growing enrollments, Long Beach Unified School District officials want to implement a system of four-year high schools. Under a plan unveiled earlier this week, the district's five high schools--which now accommodate 10th through 12th grades--would be expanded to include 9th graders.

Burbank Unified School District officials have scheduled a series of public hearings to get community reaction to a district proposal to close as many as three schools and change to a system of four-year high schools. The proposal was made by a committee appointed by the Burbank Board of Education to combat rising costs and declining enrollment.

The U.S. Department of Education this week gave two Orange County schools its Blue Ribbon School of Excellence award, one of its highest honors. The Fairmont private school in Anaheim and Lakeside Middle School in Irvine were among 221 schools nationwide to be honored with the awards, which are presented to schools that meet the needs of their students most effectively, said Jean D. Narayanan, director of the Department of Education School Recognition Program.