Final rulings on a possible restoration of the tentatively dropped classes at three Culver City schools probably will have to wait until middle, even late, summer, officials indicated.
In other intriguing developments, an attempt to revive interest in possibly reopening the long-shuttered Natatorium appeared, at first, to be a cinch to pass lopsidedly, 4 to 1. Only Board member Dana Russell resisted.
The soaring momentum sparked by a Stew Bubar motion was suddenly interrupted and eventually killed off by an apparent surge of fiscal responsibility.
Mr. Bubar had proposed an exploratory study of the feasibility of reactivating the ever-pricey indoor swimming emporium. The stated purpose was to provide the Board with needed data for a future vote.
But when Asst. Supt. David El Fattal said the study would cost $50,000 at a time when the District still is $20,000 away from reaching a labor contract agreement with its classified employees the Board reconsidered its previous enthusiasm.
In such a fragile fiscal environment, the School Board concluded upon further reflection, it would be indelicate to proceed.
Not to mention the fact the tempting but dollar-gobbling Natatorium would cost the financially hungry School District $257,000 a year for maintenance alone,
Expensive maintenance, in a narrow and a broader sense, was the reason the Natatorium went dark in the early 1990s.
Back to the Center Ring
As for the central issue of the night, confronting the School Board with the hope of pressuring a reverse ruling, here is how it played out.
After weeks of strafing School District headquarters with emails and telephone calls vehemently objecting to the kindergarten cutbacks, the parents were prepared for their first group appearance at a public forum.
Throbbing with Energy
They were intellectually armed with an impressive array of creative solutions for restoring the preschool classes.
Employing intensely personal, plainly heartfelt language, parents sought to convince the District that the problem and solution will extend well beyond the present day. As a language immersion school, they argued, El Marino will suffer the primary damage if the District for allegedly artificial or manipulative reasons eliminates an El Marino kindergarten class.
A Distinction
Students can logically gain entry to the other District schools any time after kindergarten, they asserted, but not El Marino, where the learning is inextricably linked to the languages introduced in kindergarten.
Official and unofficial El Marino parents insisted that the coveted reputation of the School District also would sustain long-term collateral damage if the present kindergarten plan is maintained.
Scales Are Tilting
Although three schools are directly affected by the dropped kindergarten classes, the pacesetting El Marino Language Immersion School, the Districts most prestigious, has filed the most voluble, most organized objections.
Last nights challenge for the School Board called for a finger-tip balancing act.
The thinking going in was that the Board had to convince families that fading enrollment is a District-wide problem, regardless of how much attention has been shined on El Marino.
Final Score
How successful the Board was is debatable this afternoon.
At the encouragement of the Board at the outset, all speakers informally took a pledge:
They would not denigrate El Marino because it has monopolized the spotlight. And no one would speak ungenerously about the other four elementary schools.
Many Similarities
The profile of the majority of speakers was easy to configure.
All were mad. Parents from all five schools came to the microphone, and they were cracklingly laudatory about their own schools.
First Choice
A number noted they had originally sought El Marino. They said emphatically that once they missed out and chose another Culver City school, they that their children had obtained the same quality of learning experiences they would have had at El Marino.
With one caveat.
Against the unavoidable backdrop of El Marinos plush image, the overriding magnet drawing them to the Sunkist Park school, the parents agreed, was the rare opportunity for full-fledged immersion in Japanese and in Spanish.
Multi-Lingualism
After all, they reasoned, we are living in the atmosphere of a global economy, and linguistic nimbleness is crucial.
Dipping into pop culture for linguistic assistance, numerous speakers said they were pro-choice.
This drew a titter from the crowd the first time it was uttered. If the decision regarding El Marino is allowed to stand, they said, choice will vanish.
Most speakers seemed to be parents of El Marino students or they passionately hoped to be in the near future.
The Race Is on
As much as families are fretting over the loss of kindergarten classes at Lin Howe and La Ballona as well as at El Marino School District leaders are nearly hyperventilating themselves over the dreaded corollary of declining enrollment:
The strictly mandated decrease in government funding, which is closely based on a daily student head count.
Where Will Falling Lead?
Figuratively speaking, plunging enrollment and plunging revenues are grasping each others sweaty palms as they free-fall through space that looks like limbo this late spring and early summer.
While families worry which school their kindergarteners eventually will attend in September, no School District leader will speculate about whether or which kindergarten classes may be reopened.
Good Behavior
For all of the verbal flame-throwing by members of the audience, though, civility prevailed.
Opinions were so hot, so prolific, the Fire Dept. should have been on standby.
These angry parents did not just throng the Lin Howe School Auditorium to vent.
They Said They Came to Help
Although the 40 who spoke were not in full-throated harmony, they agreed that they want to work in collaboration with the School District to repair the curricula before further damage is inflicted.
Protesting parents peppered the five School Board members with sizzling criticism that threatened to burn through the egos of the most secure School District leaders.
The torrid air was hot enough to create an Irving Place version of global warming.
A New Fan?
Like the other Board members and Supt. Dr. Myrna Rivera Cote, Board President Marla Wolkowitz took copious notes.
By the seventh speaker, however, she was already fanning herself. It was not clear whether Ms. Wolkowitz was responding to the closeness of the air or to the verbal heat that was being generated.
