Denied its desire last week to authorize transfer of its students into the highly desirable Culver City Unified School District, the petitioning Ladera Heights Civic Assn. is settling in for a long and energetic campaign.
Speaking in calm, measured tones, the president of the association says so.
After 2 1/2 years of dueling with various educational agencies, Ronni Cooper told the newspaper this morning that they have only begun to fight.
When the state School Board Assn. upheld Los Angeles County’s of vote two years ago to deny an attempt to transfer Ladera students out of the heavily criticized Inglewood District, the upscale Ladera community considered it a blip, not a roadblock, and definitely not the final resort.
No Surrendering
“Having gone this far,” said Ms. Cooper, the mother of two grown sons, “we certainly are not going to stop and say ‘This is what we have.’ Ladera Heights is not that kind of community.
“We will assess the circumstances, and then we will decide.”
In the meantime, she is seeking a further meeting with Dr. Myrna Rivera Cote, superintendent of Culver City schools, whom Ms. Cooper praised for being “both smart and pragmatic.”
Ladera Heights students could take a sizable bite out of the controversial issue of the number of permits that are issued to non-residents, Ms. Cooper said.
Not only would this increase the amount of state funding being channeled into Culver City coffers, it might even improve the daily traffic glut. “Our families would carpool, which would cut down on the number of cars coming into the campus areas,” Ms. Cooper said.
A Ladera Advantage?
Since Dr. Cote did not come to Culver City until a year ago this month, she missed the most emotionally draining period of the fight between this community and the neighborhood of Ladera Heights.
Ms. Cooper believes this is beneficial to the Ladera cause because, she said, it allows Dr. Cote to bring an unvarnished perspective to the table.
It is not yet clear what avenues of relief are available to the steely determined Ladera families.
The number of potentially transferring students — from Inglewood to Culver City — long has been a major sticking point — and a mystery in Culver City.
“In the beginning,” Ms. Cooper said, the number might hover around 100. In the future, “it might increase at the rate of about 100 per year.”
