This was the jubilant, undreamed of Morning After throughout the Culver City Unified School District — the school family will be able to remain together for one more year.
LAUSD Supt. Ramon C. Cortines startled thousands of Los Angeles area families when he announced at yesterday’s School Board meeting that he was immediately revoking the blanket no-student-transfer permit policy that suddenly was imposed three weeks ago.
He indicated communal pressure from families thrown into turmoil with the late-year policy change along with vehement protests from the 99 districts that accept LAUSD transfers fueled the turnaround.
The Cortines announcement was interpreted to mean that Culver City, in shock since March 17, likely will not lose any of its 1,400 permit students who form almost 20 percent of the School District enrollment. Had many or most of them been forced to return to an LAUSD school, Culver City would have lost an estimated $5 million in annual state funding.
“Fantastic opportunity,” a thrilled and relieved Scott Zeidman, vice president of the Culver City School Board, said this morning.
“But we are not out of the woods.”
He said that the District should capitalize on this calendar reprieve to broadly adjust its own permit policy.
Returning to a longtime issue for him, Mr. Zeidman said that “our district should not be so reliant on permit students in general, and especially LAUSD. Makes no sense. It is a bad business model. Eventually, LAUSD is going to restore the policy they rescinded yesterday. And then where will we be?”
Mr. Zeidman pledged to renew his personal campaign to convince a majority of his fellow Board members to embrace this view. The District should not accept any new permit students, he said emphatically.
Ironically, the LAUSD reversal was rendered just hours before the Culver City district was to convene a series of four emergency meetings this morning for worried, confused families of permit students.
With up to 1,400 school careers and millions of funding dollars at stake, the District offered to help parents of permit students navigate through the complex process of trying to keep their children in Culver City’s desirable schools.
Drew Sotelo, Asst. Director of Pupil Services for the District, who is bi-lingual, was to conduct information meetings at 8 and 10 in Spanish at the District offices on Irving Place, and at 9 and 11 in English.
By the time Mr. Sotelo breezed into the District quarters a little before 8 this morning, dozens of parents, mostly moms, quietly had assembled at the locked front door.
Before ushering inside what grew into an overflow crowd, Mr. Sotelo greeted the Hispanic and black parents in Spanish and English. They did not seem aware of the latest LAUSD policy change. Even when Mr. Sotelo mentioned it, there was no detectable change in their expressions.
Here is the LAUSD announcement from its website, lausd.net
LAUSD REVISITS INTER-DISTRICT TRANSFER APPLICATION
PROCESS AND PROMISES NEW ADMINISTRATIVE REVIEW SYSTEM
SUPERINTENDENT PLANS A NEW PROCESS FOR BOARD REVIEW IN SEPTEMBER 2010
During yesterday’s meeting of the Los Angeles Unified School District Board of Education, Superintendent Ramon C. Cortines announced that he is delaying his decision to tighten the LAUSD inter-district transfers application process, citing discussions with parents, affected school district superintendents and the county superintendent. As a result, inter-district transfers for 2010-11 will continue to be available with the correct documentation.
Superintendent Cortines discussed how lax the District has been in the past regarding inter-district permits and promised a thorough review. Additional review of the administrative procedures for transfers will be conducted with the intent of introducing a new administrative system for further board review and discussion in September.
“I’d like to make it perfectly clear that LAUSD has made great strides in improving the educational options for students who reside within the boundaries of our school district. We have award-winning magnet programs, a number of California Distinguished schools, and campuses with small learning communities and personalized instruction,”said Superintendent Cortines.
LAUSD “However, to minimize the impact on students, I have asked staff to delay implementation of the new District-wide procedure. This will provide us with ample time to review the reasons for requests for transfers, analyze them and respond with solutions that may cause parents to reexamine the various educational options and opportunities that LAUSD has to offer.
“My hope is that parents and guardians of our District will continue to visit our schools to see those improvements and become our champions of an LAUSD public education,” Cortines continued.
Currently, 12,200 LAUSD students attend schools in other districts. Approximately 80 percent were expected to return to LAUSD schools under the revised policy, which would allow the District to recoup an estimated $51 million in state funds based on student attendance. That money is allocated based on the district in which the student attends school.
Parents will still have to apply for the transfer and each will be evaluated on some of the following criteria: parental employment, childcare, space availability, and educational options not offered within the District.
