School Board member Scott Zeidman, who advocates a deep reduction in permits, will have an opportunity to showcase his ideas at tonight’s 7 o’clock meeting at the District offices, 4034 Irving Pl.
This will be a practice run, a preliminary discussion, a chance for him to sell his plan. There will not be a binding vote.
School District leaders are breathing normally again after recently deflecting a walloping fiscal setback of perhaps $5.4 million. That was the estimated loss in state funding to the District if LAUSD had carried out its ground-shaking new policy to prohibit most transfers out of LAUSD.
About three weeks after stunning several adjacent school districts with that news, LAUSD just as surprisingly reversed itself and granted a reprieve. They declared the drastic plan would not be implemented until next year.
Tonight’s School Board discussion in Culver City will center on the thorny subject of secondary permits, which is how transfers for Middle School and Culver City High School students are known.
“We will talk about how secondary permits affect our bottom line, and what we need to do to become responsible with permits,” Mr. Zeidman said this afternoon.
“Do we keep the same process we have now? Minimize the current number (which ranges upward of 20 percent of enrollment)?
Which Way Culver City?
“What do we do, in light of what LAUSD may or may not be doing with regard to the resident students and permit students we now have?”
In his campaign for the Board and in the 2½ years since being elected, Mr. Zeidman has pressed to reduce the number of permits issued for stabilization purposes.
“I don’t want to eliminate permits altogether,” he said. “At this point, we need permits in our elementary schools. We need them to get from elementary school to middle school and high school. “As a businessperson, I would like to put a soft cap on enrollment for each grade at the middle and high school level.
“Pick a number, a reasonable number, say 450 per class.
“There are many advantages. But a main one would be reducing our reliance on other districts because we would reduce the number of permit students we would bring in.
“The transfers we do bring in would be students who have been with us since kindergarten. These are kids our kids are growing up with. They are not being dropped off at the last minute, knowing nobody.
“For staffing purposes, if we know we are going to approximately 450 students per class, we can plan accordingly.”
Mr. Zeidman was asked how much support he has from his four compatriots.
“I am right,” he said, not without a touch of irony, “so I expect complete support.”
