The celebrated Lycée français of Los Angeles is planning to establish a high school campus on a National Blvd. parcel at the north end of Vinton.

The campus would replace a recycling center and auto-body shop and would be built just west of a storage center where the W&J Sloane Furniture store used to be.

There will be a single three-story building, school officials said.

The Palms Neighborhood Council heard details of the project at its regular meeting on May 18, 2004. Speakers were Barry Leneman, project manager, and Dale Goldsmith, land-use attorney.

Stakeholders agreed to back the proposal, with the

provision that traffic problems would be taken care of.

The school has two other campuses in Palms and two in West Los Angeles. The Palms campuses (both in the Westside Village district) are at 3261 Overland, near Rose (grades 2 through 12) and at 3055 Overland, adjoining the I-10 Freeway (preschool through Grade 1).

The idea is to move the current 113 high school students to the new three-story building, Goldsmith said.

But the campus would be built large enough to enable its expansion to no more than 340 students, 15 teachers and five staff and security people, he said.

Palms Stakeholders at the May 18, 2004, meeting expressed concern about the traffic impact in the neighborhood, but the school spokesmen said it would be minimal.

For one thing, National Blvd. will be widened and a east-facing left-turn lane into the school will be constructed, Goldsmith said.

And the drop-off point for students will be an underground garage with enough space for parents' cars to queue up, thus keeping the back-up off of National, the spokesmen said.

There will be 61 interior parking spaces (the city requires 54). There will also be parking in the present school lot on the east side of Overland Ave. south of Rose (61 spaces).

"The school will agree to prohibit students from parking on the local streets," Goldsmith said. "Also the students will wear uniforms, so you will know who is a student and who isn’t."

He said the city found that there would be two minor impacts on neighborhood intersections — once the school is operating at its full capacity, and that will not be for several years.

Those would be the intersections of National Blvd. with Motor on the west and with Castle Heights on the east (this one is in the South Robertson Neighborhood Council area).

The city will require the school to pay into an Adaptive Traffic Control System fund (to pay for setting signals based on traffic flow).

The Lycée français of Los Angeles was founded in 1964-1965 by Mr. and Mrs. Raymond Kabbaz. It gives scholarships to worthy families of all nationalities, according to its Web site.

The lycée offers not only an American high school diploma but also preparation for both the French and the international baccalaureate examinations.

The most famous graduate is probably actress Jodie Foster, who was a straight-A student at Yale University after her graduation from the lycée.

"It's an extremely private school," Leneman said, "but their outreach is quite extensive. They will do a lot of outreach in elder care and in hospitals.

"They actually do quite a lot, but they are very quiet about it."

The current effort in outreach — occasioned by the necessity of obtaining a conditional-use permit from the city — is "the first time in their 42-year history that they’ve gone public in any way," Leneman said.

And that's "because it is important that you, the neighborhood, know who they are and what they are and how incredibly intent they are that they serve the community."

One Stakeholder asked:

"Could you call it the 'Palms' campus — not 'West Los Angeles.'"

"That sounds reasonable," Feneman responded.

"Will there be any possible interaction between the students — the student body — and the Neighborhood Council?"

"I would not say no" replied Leneman.

"It is not typical of the school to have that, but I would not say no. It’s a whole new ball game, and I would certainly be happy to take it up with the owner of the school and to talk with him about the possibilities . . . "

Goldsmith: "There could be activities within the gym and we could keep the rest of the school closed."

Same Stakeholder: "We need an office, we need a place to meet, we need space, we would like to talk with your

principal about the possibility of using some of that space which is in our neighborhood for the benefit of
our neighborhood.

"Now we have a large number of renters here, apartment dwellers, apartment owners, and they don’t go to private schools, mostly; they go to public schools.

"So I think that the people who are using our neighborhood for this project should have some consideration for the people who live around them, and, as they used to say, 'noblesse oblige.'" [Nobility has its obligations.]

Feneman: “I will make sure the information gets back to them about what the conversation has been.”