In an anticipated outcome, the state of California last week rejected an appeal by a Ladera Heights parent group to overturn a Los Angeles County ruling that denied an attempt to transfer hundreds of Ladera students from the Inglewood Unified School District to the Culver City district.
The Sacramento decision last Thursday appeared to be clear-cut.
The State School Board Assn. cast 6 “no” votes and 2 “yes” votes. There were 2 abstentions.
Despite the supposed last-resort ruling, the case still is breathing.
Ronni Cooper, president of the Ladera Heights Civic Assn., the appellant group, contacted Dr. Myrna Rivera Cote, Superintendent of the Culver City district, requesting a meeting.
A date has not yet been set.
Dr. Cote and School Board member Jessica Beagles-Roos attended last Thursday’s public hearing and ultimate vote.
On a day when the hearing emphasis was on Ladera Heights rather than Culver City, Dr. Beagles-Roos testified about the School Board’s neutral position.
First Anniversary
Dr. Cote, who celebrated her one-year anniversary in Culver City last week, told the newspaper she found the public hearing experience “interesting.”
Arriving in Culver City in the latter stages of the case, after the hottest disputes had begun to recede, Dr. Cote found it enlightening “to hear the appellants speak to the State Board.”
The nub of the Ladera case is easily defined.
From the beginning, families from the upscale Ladera Heights neighborhood, immediately south of Culver City, have contended that their ambitious, goal-oriented children are sadly underserved by the frequently criticized Inglewood District.
Advocates of the Ladera case argue that few other students in the Inglewood District are scholarly driven.
Culver City Perspective
The case, enormously unpopular in Culver City, has been simmering for 2 1/2 years.
Debates over an official position by the School Board in Culver City attracted large and strongly disapproving crowds in the early stages of the case two years ago last autumn.
In a non-essential decision, the School Board voted unanimously to stand neutral on the Ladera Heights transfer attempt.
The vote presumably did not have legal standing in the county’s equally lopsided decision-making process.
A Final Detail
One more so far undiscussed factor is poised in the background.
Underpinning the ongoing scenario, playing a verbal — if not official — role in the years’-long debates and deliberations, is the fact that many of the Ladera Heights’ students are black.
