A standard feature of California schools is the MPR, or multipurpose room, which is about as drab as it sounds — a big, open space where you can stage a play or a science fair.

But the MPR on at Parkview School in Yorba Linda was converted last fall into a high-tech gym. On one side, coaches work on wrestling moves with some younger students. On the other, brand-new training equipment lines the walls — some of the machines cost more than $10,000 each.

“This machine alone does hundreds of exercises,” said Christian Holiday, a supervisor at the school. “All that data gets pushed up into the cloud so we can measure metrics for each kid.”

Next door is the recovery center. It’s got plush recliners equipped with red-light therapy to help with muscle recovery — in one of the chairs, a high school wrestler kicks back with compression boots on his legs.

The third- through 12th-grade students in this program are homeschooled and then come here, to the Universal Sports Institute, to work with professional trainers.

Some parents say the institute gives them more family time because their sports-crazy kids aren’t training during dinner.

“I, as a former athlete myself, would've absolutely died for an opportunity like this,” said Heather Sargeant, who has two boys enrolled.

To be clear, this is a free, public school program, part of the Placentia-Yorba Linda Unified School District. Superintendent Alex Cherniss developed the program.

“Like many districts in California, we've been struggling with enrollment,” he said. “And so I got to thinking, well, maybe this is a way to keep our kids, but also maybe to attract kids from all over.”

Americans are having fewer and fewer children, which means fewer students attending public schools. That’s a big budget problem for school districts in states like California, which get a big chunk of their funding based on the number of kids they serve.

Over the past decade, Placentia-Yorba Linda has enrolled, on average, 400 fewer students each year — a loss of millions of dollars annually. That could just be a demographic reality, but Cherniss thinks at least some of those kids are going to private or charter schools.

Attracting students to the sports institute, including from outside the district, would mean more state funding at a time when districts are being forced into tough choices about closing schools and cutting staff.

There are only about a hundred kids enrolled at the sports institute, and district staff estimate the program will be about $1 million in the hole this year.

The district has spent close to $4 million on the institute, based on a school board report. Some school board members aren’t sure this elite program is a good investment. At a recent meeting, they argued over how they might get more bang for their buck out of those red-light therapy chairs.

“ We can spread them out, one to each high school,” suggested one board member.

“You cannot move those, they're not portable,” another shot back.

The board is now planning cuts across the district to close its multimillion-dollar budget gap.

The sports institute has already started to trim its budget. It hopes to double its student body next year, which could make the whole venture more sustainable.