Declining enrollment is not the same thing as low enrollment. The Culver City School District is at a relatively high historic enrollment level. It is experiencing a decline from a 25-year-plus peak, but we're not experiencing low enrollment. Does anyone else notice all the kids in our neighborhoods?
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The peak enrollment of at least the last 25 years was achieved only because of ever increasing numbers of permit students. Relatively few permits attended Culver City schools before the late 1990s. Now, roughly 1 in 5 Culver City students is from outside of Culver City.
During the same period that School District was running our enrollment to historic highs, Santa Monica had begun shedding 900 students to relieve overcrowding by implementing more restrictive enrollment policies (Argonaut, May 24, 2007).
Our Middle School has been at very high enrollment levels, which are the result of hundreds of new permits being added at the Middle School level. It's down about 70 students this year because the School District only accepted half of the 140 new permit students who applied this year (maybe due to parent awareness and pressure). Roughly the same can be said for the year before.
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Hundred of new permit students (permit students who did not attend our elementary schools) have been added at the Middle School and high school in recent years. So many were added to the Middle School in 2005 that it exceeded its capacity (according to the District’s 2003 developer fee study). The District had to make an emergency purchase of portable classrooms, which still sit on the Middle School playground.
If the District just would let our elementary schools flow into our Middle School and high school without adding significant numbers of new permit students, our secondary school enrollments would be much lower and much closer to their historic averages over the last 25 years.
Our high school is also at an historical high enrollment level compared to the last 25 years or so. It’s currently at a very high level with approximately 2,200 students this year. Many new permit students are also added at the high school level. This year, at least 72 new permits were accepted into the high school.
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The benefits of smaller secondary schools, especially to students at diverse ones such as ours, are well recognized. Most schools only run enrollments as large as ours if they have no choice. With its undisclosed permit policy, the District is choosing to run our secondary schools at very high levels. Speaking to experts and doing my own research has convinced me that no one feels that enrollments as high as ours are beneficial.
Our elementary enrollment actually increased this year (2007 is not shown on graph) because 150 new kindergarten permit students were accepted this year. Instead of losing K classes, our District had to open 3 new K classes this year and still couldn't accommodate all of its kindergarten students without exceeding the mandated 20-student class size. In some classes, (at least in one kindergarten class next to my son's at Farragut). Some of our elementary schools apparently now have kindergarten enrollments that are over 50 percent permit students, and exceeding mandated class size, could subject our District to significant fines.
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The District took ‘way more kindergarten students than it needed to keep all our schools at a minimum of three kindergartens (thought to be the financially needed number) and allow District parents to send their kids to the schools of choice. I prefer taking most permits from the beginning at the K level, and I feel permit students in reasonable numbers are a great benefit to our schools. We have some great permit students and families in Culver City schools. But, the key is reasonable numbers. We took too many K permits this year.
