School Construction

For years, Johnson Community Day School has been the second, third or last chance for students kicked out of other middle and high schools. And many have thrived in a setting with small classes, counseling and close supervision to overcome truancy, drug use or brushes with the law. But now Johnson itself is being booted. Next month, the school must vacate its longtime South Los Angeles campus, pushing students already on the edge of failure into a cross-town commute.

Chris Tellez sat in class, his stomach grinding. The 15-year-old felt fine in his first class two weeks ago at Animo Locke Charter High School 2 in Watts, but by second period he could wait no longer. "I had to use the restroom," he said. "But the toilets are there in the open. There are no stalls or anything. " He went to the office and asked if he could go home. His mother was called and gave the go-ahead. As he hurried to his home, which is behind the school, two older boys beat him up and stole his cellphone.

Despite the fact that literally billions of dollars worth of school construction projects are awaiting funding, the California Assembly recently defeated a measure to place a school construction bond measure on this November's statewide ballot. Local Assembly members Doris Allen (R-Cypress) and Tom Umberg (D-Garden Grove) were among those who voted in favor of the bond measure and are to be congratulated for supporting public education and the state's schoolchildren. It is unfortunate that some of their colleagues do not share the same priorities.

WASHINGTON - Growth in the crucial manufacturing sector unexpectedly slowed in March as companies reported fewer new orders and less production compared with the previous month. The Institute for Supply Management's widely watched purchasing managers index dropped to 51.3 last month compared with 54.2 in February. The reading, released Monday, came in below analyst expectations of about 54. A reading above 50 indicates growth in the sector, which covers a wide variety of industries.

Los Angeles school officials agreed Friday to test a new method of school construction and allow private developers to build a limited number of primary centers. Following basic specifications from the Los Angeles Unified School District, the developers would finance the construction with bank loans and sell the completed schools to the district. "We are looking to try some pilot projects to see if the concept works," said Howard Miller, the district's chief operating officer.

With steadily rising enrollment causing a space crunch at Fillmore schools, the district's board today is scheduled to discuss how it will pay to complete construction of the middle school. The construction project is one of 11 recommendations contained in a long-range planning document. A year in the making, the report is a detailed analysis of the district's capital-improvement needs extending into the next century. "We expect by the year 2000 to be up above 4,000 kids," Supt.

In an effort to generate more classroom seats by streamlining the school construction process and expanding financing options, the Los Angeles school board Monday unanimously approved an ambitious plan requiring the school district to examine its building practices, seek more local autonomy in funding schools and explore partnerships with private companies.

Business and civic leaders met at the Getty Center on Wednesday to discuss how to help the Los Angeles Unified School District with its plans to construct more than 100 schools in the next decade. Mayor James K. Hahn, Los Angeles School Supt. Roy Romer and Disney chief executive Michael Eisner were the keynote speakers at the summit, which drew about 150 people.

Construction of a proposed private school connected to the Valley Iranian Jewish Center has won approval from a city zoning administrator. Jewish center leaders have proposed construction of a 12,300-square-foot religious school for 150 children just north of the synagogue at 6170 Wilbur Ave., which is also called the Eretz Cultural Center. The addition was strongly opposed by neighbors, who contended that the synagogue traffic had created a traffic hazard in the neighborhood.

WASHINGTON -- In another boost for the economy, construction spending picked up in February as home builders moved to address the growing demand and shortage of supply in the housing market. The value of public construction also rose in February from the prior month, offering hopeful signs that state and local government spending may be stabilizing even as federal budget cuts start to take hold. Overall, private and public construction spending rose 1.2% in February from the prior month, to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of $885.1 billion, the Commerce Department reported Monday.

A former priest and suspected child molester left employment with the Los Angeles archdiocese to work for the L.A. Unified School District, officials confirmed Sunday. The former clergyman, Joseph Pina, did not work with children in his school district job, L.A. schools Supt. John Deasy said. He added that, as a result of the disclosures, Pina would no longer be employed by the nation's second-largest school system. Over the weekend, Deasy was unable to pull together Pina's full employment history, but said the district already was looking into the matter of Pina's hiring.

The summer before Kenna Castillo started sixth grade at Sierra Madre Middle School, education officials ordered demolition of the aging campus to make way for a brand-new school. More than 2 1/2 years later, construction has yet to start, and Kenna is wrapping up eighth grade in a hodgepodge of trailers on a dirt lot. On Tuesday, Pasadena Unified school board members ordered yet another delay for the rebirth of Sierra Madre Middle School after bids for the $22.5-million project came in nearly $9 million over budget.

Weeks after stepping down as chief of the Los Angeles Unified School District's $20-billion construction program, James D. Sohn took a job at a company that has profited from public contracts he approved. Sohn's hiring by Seville Construction Services Inc. of Pasadena highlights the tight bonds between the public officials in charge of building Los Angeles schools and the companies they hire to manage construction. Sohn, now executive vice president of Seville, is the third consecutive chief facilities executive at L.A. Unified to resign and go to work for a construction management firm whose work he had overseen for the district.

I've served 10 years on the citizens committee that oversees the Los Angeles Unified School District's building program. As I leave that post, I've drawn one clear conclusion: Educators should not manage large school construction programs. Without an independent, professionally run school construction authority, taxpayers will never be protected from the kind of mismanagement chronicled in The Times' "Billions to Spend" series on the bungled building program of the Los Angeles Community College District, and in news articles more than a decade earlier about the Los Angeles Unified School District's Belmont fiasco.

Four key consultants behind the nation's largest school construction program have been suspended from their work with the Los Angeles Unified School District pending an internal investigation into their recently formed company, The Times has learned. The suspended consultants ? Charlie Anderson, John Creer, Rod Hamilton and Edwin Van Ginkel ? have held prominent roles in acquiring real estate and overseeing environmental reviews, planning and school design over the last decade.

The architecture firm of Richard Meier has created some of the most striking buildings in Los Angeles — the Getty Center, the Gagosian Gallery and the Museum of Television and Radio, to name just a few. Starting this fall, the firm will add another structure to its local résumé with the new Edie and Lew Wasserman Building at UCLA. The six-story, 100,000 square-foot building will serve as a multi-purpose medical facility that houses the Jules Stein Eye Institute as well as departments of the David Geffen School of Medicine.

An activist who was investigating the role shoddy school construction played in the deaths of more than 5,000 children in the 2008 Sichuan earthquake was given a three-year prison sentence Monday on charges of possessing state secrets. Huang Qi, 46, a veteran activist and blogger, is the most prominent of more than a dozen people who were arrested for demanding investigations into construction standards after the magnitude 7.9 temblor. Others included prominent artists, former teachers and parents who lost their only children in the earthquake.