Re “Zeidman: Tonight Is the Time for District to Rethink Strategy on Permits”
School Board member Scott Zeidman’s just-unveiled pre-emptive plan for avoiding a second straight ambush of permit students by the Los Angeles Unified School District, won bouquets from all of his colleagues last night — especially Dr. Patricia Siever.
“Ingenius,” she said at separate times. “Very innovative.”
Arguing for stabilization of enrollment rather than the present state of fiscal and physical volatility, Mr. Zeidman’s scheme calls for steadily scaling back the number of issued permits, thereby lowering enrollment, until both reach a desired level that is to be determined.
Mr. Zeidman pronounced the dreaded term “downsizing,” noting that a reduction of students logically will lead to a fewer teachers and a cutback in programs offered. Grimaces on the faces of Board members came and went because they believe the present permit dilemma has them cornered.
“We have a gun to our heads,” Mr. Zeidman said. “The only question is when the bullet gets there. We have to be pro-active, not reactive.”
Implementation of the Zeidman Plan could be virtually immediate.
Deeming the Middle School and Culver City High School overcrowded, ostensibly because they bulge with permit students, the intention is to gradually lower, and then stabilize the enrollment as a safeguard against suddenly losing a clutch of transfer students and funding through outside decisions — a euphemism for LAUSD.
It Is the Super’s Choice
Presently, Supt. Dr. Myrna Rivera Cote is allowed to accept any number of permit students she deems reasonable. Given every school district’s thirst for government funding, the permit bucket is nearly bottomless. At the next School Board meeting on Tuesday, May 11, members hope to take the first step toward the Zeidman Plan by giving Dr. Cote a strategy for eventually limiting all classes to 450 students.
The objective, which Mr. Zeidman acknowledges will not be reached quickly, is to insulate Culver City schools against surprise decisions by other districts — namely LAUSD — that would instantly cause Culver City to lose not only students but millions in state funding.
He said Culver City and other heavily affected districts should have learned from this spring’s panic-inducing policy decision by LAUSD.
It was a bizarre tableau that landed like a punch in the nose, with machine-gun shock and rapidity. Rumors began in mid-February that Los Angeles, suffering the same deep deficits as other districts, only larger, would prohibit its huge crowd of transfer students from leaving their home district. A month later, the sweeping new policy officially was announced, effective instantly.
In Culver City, that devastating news was followed closely by perspiration running amok on the faces of administrators, teachers and transfer families from LAUSD, the professionals fearful of losing funding and their jobs. Three weeks later, in early April came another stunner:
Los Angeles Unified Supt. Dr. Ramon C. Cortines said, “Never mind.”
The Time to Act, Not React
Instead of implementing the draconian move immediately, he said that a still-undecided form of the strategy probably would be incorporated next year. Or sometime in the future.
Mr. Zeidman, long an opponent of massive permit issuance, sprang into instant mode even before the fumes had dried up from that dreary experience.
Last night he vividly explained to his fellow members what he sternly believes needs to be done, starting immediately:
Declaring that enrollment is “artificially high” in Culver City schools, he said that “we started living on these permit students about 10 years ago. When I graduated (in 1981) from Culver City High School, there were 1350 people in school. Right now, we have 2, 280 children in the school. Same campus. Same everything else. It was crowded when I was there. I can’t imagine what it is like now.
“Talk to any principal, and you will be told there are too many kids at the high school. The Middle School had 1,300 students when I was there. It now has 1,557. That is not because of our own residents, but because of permits.
“Under other circumstances, permits might be fine in Middle School and the high school.
“But we know that, if not this year or next, L.A. Unified is going to cut back on those permits (that could cost Culver City $5.4 million annually in state funding, as presently constructed). We have a gun to our heads.
“Yes, permits offer great opportunities — more money and more programs. That’s fantastic. But those permit students are also using those programs and that money.
“If we keep our enrollment artificially high, as it is now, and then if L.A. Unified comes in and says, ‘Oh, by the way, it’s over,’ when they cut us off, we will go into a deficit that we won’t be able to come out of.
“The only way to avoid this is to slowly, methodically reduce the number of permits.
Wrong Philosophy?
“There is no reason for us to have 2200 students in the high school. We are at 2200 because we are used to being at 2200, which is artificially high.
“We need to slowly get down to a reasonable number where we can take in permits. Let the Middle School and high school permits stand. Matriculate them on, and give them a chance to fight to stay in our district.
“But bringing in kids in the sixth grade, seventh grade, eighth grade and ninth, 10th, 11th and 12 is , while great for money, not good for education.
“Finally, I will ask you if you know of any studies that show that larger schools are better for kids than smaller schools? Definitely not. So we are being artificially high and larger so we can make money and offer programs. But we are not doing our students a service.”
How would the District get to Mr. Zeidman’s goal?
He suggested “a soft cap for the Middle School and the high school, somewhere around 450 students for the Middle School. We matriculate out of the fifth grade approximately 435 kids each year. Not all of them are going to go to our Middle School. That will allow us to bring in some permits and maintain a stable number of students each year. By doing so, for staffing purposes, we would know every year we are going to have approximately 450 students in the sixth grade, 450 in the seventh, 450 in the eighth, ninth,10th, 11th and 12th.
“If we fall below that number, we can allow more students into the 11th grade if we are short.
“By doing it that way, we would not have any massive increases or massive decreases.
“A soft cap means that if 10 more residents move in, of course we take them. But the goal is to staff at 450 every year, or whatever number we decide on.”
One more piece remained to be put in place.
“We need to give direction to the administration,” Mr. Zeidman said. “As far as I know, it has none now.”
