School Construction

The Belmont Learning Complex was envisioned as one of a kind. It would combine the city's first new high school in nearly 30 years with housing and retail development -- extras that could raise money to help cap construction costs at about $45 million. When the school opens in 2008, at least nine years behind schedule, it will indeed make history -- with its cost.

A serial whistle-blower who accused L.A. Unified of using deceptive means to squeeze more money from the state to help build a charter campus has dropped the case against the school system and current and former employees. A recent state Supreme Court decision immunizes government agencies from the False Claims Act, both sides said.

An audit of the Los Angeles Unified School District's progress in building and remodeling schools to make them accessible to the disabled found chronic problems in the design of parking, restrooms, ramps and drinking water fountains, as well as a troubling lack of documentation and misstatements of accomplishments.

The Los Angeles Unified School District has limited the authority of one of its senior-level construction managers to supervise consultants that he supplies to the district through his side firm after a Times article exposed the practice.

Kindergarteners in handmade sun and rainbow hats stand on our neighborhood elementary school's shiny new stage belting out a heart-lifting song. At first I can't decide whether to label this cheerful ribbon-cutting ceremony the symbol of a triumph or a fiasco. It's been a while since my wife and I showed up at the first meeting to discuss the need for an auditorium at Mount Washington Elementary School. At the time, our youngest son was a year away from starting kindergarten.

The projected shortfall in the new Los Angeles Unified School District's campus construction program has ballooned from $1.6 billion to at least $2.4 billion in the last six months, the result of spiraling construction costs. And Los Angeles school officials, who were already scrambling to cover the lower shortfall, have no plan in place that would entirely make up the gap. The alarm from staff members emerged Thursday during a committee meeting of the Los Angeles Board of Education.

Several members of the state panel that oversees funding for new schools said Wednesday that they wanted a full review to determine if Riverside County's Val Verde Unified School District misspent state funds. One member also expressed concern that the district's growing debt may put it in financial peril. "I think we have a train wreck coming financially," said State Allocation Board member Sen. Bob Margett (R-Arcadia).

The Los Angeles Unified School District broke ground Wednesday on a new high school on the Eastside, the first to be built in the area in 85 years. About 500 Boyle Heights-area parents, students, school district and civic leaders celebrated construction of the school with a Mexican breakfast, trumpets and balloons.

It was supposed to be temporary -- the long white trailer on the school blacktop, sporting a lopsided California license plate and wired to a propane tank. But a year later, the trailer's eight wheels haven't budged from McNair Elementary School in Compton. Inside, three kitchen workers still wash, slice and simmer food for the school's 540 students. The school's kitchen, a few steps from the makeshift one, sits in disrepair.