After careening through three public forums, the five candidates for the School Board have squeezed the air out of most subjects — we will take a closer look at reducing permits to help thin out the perceived crowded population at the upper schools and crowded classrooms; we will fix poor communication between the School District and the community; we will be more transparent Board members, accessible, weekly, to the community; we’d like to see the Natatorium re-opened; the Board will be upgraded regardless of which two of us you elect — one other topic remains dangling, Ladera Heights.
At every forum, the question of how to respond to Ladera Heights has been posed.
Motivation for Transfer
The petition filed 2 1/2 years ago by the upscale, south-of-Culver City enclave to join the prestigious Culver City school system remains in limbo until the state of California makes a call.
Ladera families want to escape from the Inglewood district, which is not among the highly rated jurisdictions in Los Angeles.
Two years ago this month, the present School Board, and Culver City generally, made it clear that an influx of Ladera students — the number officially undetermined — was unwelcome.
Acceptable Figure?
Technically, the Board said it needed more information, namely the intended number of students. But no Board member would say that any number of transfers from Ladera was acceptable.
Numbers used have ranged from a little more than 300, at the time the petition became known, to 1600, a figure that surfaced last week.
The five contenders for two open Board seats in the election a week from Tuesday have not offered Ladera parents any succor.
Complicating the unusual transfer proposal is the demographic fact that most of the involved families are black. Naturally, no one within a mile of the Ladera wrangle would acknowledge that race is a factor. Some parties on the Ladera side think race is an influencing if not a determinative factor.
Taking a Vote
If the state validates Ladera’s appeal of the original turndown, a bevy of questions will have to be answered before Ladera’s fate becomes known. For one thing, there apparently would be a community vote, sparing School Board members of taking more than a non-position.
Former Mayor Paul Jacobs dropped in on last Thursday night’s forum for the School Board candidates at the Raintree Clubhouse. Near he end, he asked each candidate how he would vote on Ladera.
Here is how the candidates answered Mr. Jacobs:
Roger Maxwell:
“Ladera Heights has approximately — you can’t get a good number. But I have done the research. Ladera Heights has about 1600 children who would come here. Almost all Inglewood schools are rated 1 (bottom of the rating system). We have schools here that are 10s, 7s and 8s. I am the only one on the panel who signed an email petition, from Germany (where the Maxwell family was posted two years ago), against the measure coming from Ladera Heights. We have nothing to say about it until a ruling comes down from the state. I was against it then. I am against it now.”
C. Scott Zeidman:
“We don’t know how many kids would be coming from Ladera. They won’t tell us, and they don’t have to. We do know they will bring nothing more to us but overcrowding. If you think we would be getting hundreds of thousands of dollars in tax money from Ladera, you are sorely mistaken. A Ladera student would bring us nothing more than a Crenshaw child, an Inglewood child or an El Segundo child. They will bring nothing to us but the (Average Daily Attendance stipend), which we already get. So, we’ve got an overcrowded high school. We’ve got an overcrowded Middle School. Now we are being offered anywhere from one to, if Mr. Maxwell is correct,1600 Ladera students to join our schools. It makes absolutely no sense. It doesn’t matter if it is Ladera, El Segundo, Redondo Beach, Santa Monica or any other city or school. We, at this point, have to get our enrollment under control first, and only then consider anybody. At this point, the answer is definitely, unambiguously, we do not need Ladera.”
Alan Elmont:
“As soon as the Ladera petition was presented to the Inglewood district and Inglewood voted against it, at that point, the Culver City School Board had no say in the matter. Then it went to the County for review. They refused it, and now it is on appeal to the state. If the state approves it, then it goes to a popular vote. Who gets to vote, will be determined by the state. Culver City is one of four districts in the state almost co-terminus with the city. This is our Mayberry. This was done on purpose. If we are going to change it, this should be determined by a popular vote. I don’t think it should be a School Board decision. It should be a community decision. My vote would have been no. Let the community decide.
“At the School Board meetings since this issue has come up and since it became known it would go to a vote, I have advocated to the Board that they should advise the state that should the state overturn the County, that Culver City residents be allowed to vote on this issue. Fortunately, the Board did adopt that position. (But they approved) an ill-advised letter they authorized the Superintendent to send a couple Board meetings ago.”
Mike Eskridge:
“I have been against (approving the Ladera petition) because we don’t know the numbers, and we really need to get the correct numbers. Right now, we are one of the lowest (Average Daily Attendance revenue) districts in the state. The money coming in to us is not that great. Other districts around us get more money than we do per student. Our tax dollars used to stay in Culver City. They no longer do. They go to the state, and the state loans the money back to us. What we really need to do is look at what makes us unique. As overcrowded as we are, we need to take fewer permits.
“When the School Board voted on this, they voted to take a no-position. In a secret, almost at the end of a Board meeting, about 11 o’clock at night, they took a consensus vote to send a letter of neutrality. That was illegal. They changed the vote.”
Steve Gourley:
“Roger signed the email petition. Scott went to the meeting. I did what Mike did. I called the School Board and made my position known, which was the same as it was 16 years ago, which was that we had a co-terminus District, which we fought very hard for. The reason was, we wanted to give city money and Redevelopment Agency money to schools that were all part of Culver City so we could meet the requirement that the aid we were giving to the schools was for the benefit of all Culver residents. The bottom line, Paul, is you would want more information, as all of these gentlemen have said. One thing that comes through loud and clear (from Ladera Heights), is that there is no infrastructure given this. We have to take in whatever number of new students without one new building, one bathroom or one new facility. It would just drop a huge bomb on the District. And I totally agree with Mike on the secret vote.”
