Re “On Super Jaffe’s Debut Night, the Board Makes Student Cap News”
First I want to let everyone know that I feel we now have a School Board that is working well together, listening to and acting on concerns of the public, working much more cooperatively with our city government, and moving forward on getting a lot of positive things done for our schools.
The administration seems to be listening, too, following our elected representatives’ requests and instructions (which has not necessarily always been the case). Our new Interim Superintendent, Patty Jaffe, even though her current title suggests she is just there to temporarily hold things in place, seems to have hit the ground running, to be very motivated, and to be actively working on things to further improve our schools. Even given the brutal economic times, I am very encouraged about the future of our school district.
At the last Culver City Unified School District School Board meeting this past Tuesday, the Board voted to cap enrollments for each grade level as it relates to the acceptance of new permits at the Middle School and Culver City High School. and CCHS.
After many years without giving any direction to the Superintendent and administration in this regard, our elected representatives on the School Board have finally adopted enrollment caps and given direction to the CCUSD administration.
As many of you might know, our enrollment at these schools has grown very large at times because of hundreds of new permits students, students who had not previously attended a CCUSD school, being admitted to CCMS and CCHS.
CCMS hit 1,740 students a few years ago (which made it really overcrowded and which motivated some of us to begin fighting CCUSD’s “the more merrier mentality” and its “no enrollment policy policy”) . Last year, CCHS was in the very full 2,300-student range (I would argue overcrowded) with about 29 percent of the students being permits.
Here are some of the facts and information as I understand them (and a little opinion) about CCUSD’s enrollment cap.
• The caps only apply to the Middle School (CCMS) and High School (CCHS) and are based on grade level enrollment.
• The cap number per grade level has been set at 500 students. Eventually, the policy will lead to a maximum enrollment at CCMS of 1500 students and at CCHS of 2,000 students.
• No existing student at CCUSD who complies with the District’s requirements, permit or resident, will be turned away if the caps are exceeded. The practical effect, if the cap number is reached at any grade level for any given year, will be that the district won’t add additional new permit students at that grade level. For instance, if we lose some permits in a grade level that currently has 600 students, CCUSD won’t try replace them with new permits but it will allow all the other students at that grade level to remain so that grade level might still have close to 600 students for that year.
• Because last year CCMS had an average grade level size in the low 500-student range and CCHS had about 600 students per grade level, we will probably see a somewhat gradual reduction in total enrollment at these schools over the course of a few years (assuming LAUSD doesn’t yank existing permit students).
What about cutting enrollment in these very tough economic times when we are already being forced to make drastic cuts? The answer, from my point of view, is that LAUSD made the decision for us. CCUSD doesn't have the option to maintain the same large enrollments even if it wanted to.
• LAUSD has stopped releasing most new permits to other school districts. We had about 1,700 permits from LAUSD in Culver City schools last year. Whether we will be allowed to keep most of our existing LAUSD permits is still an open question. For now, LAUSD is not releasing (most) new permits, but LAUSD has said they will be announcing a new permit policy later this summer. It is not yet clear whether this new policy will allow existing permit students to matriculate from one Culver City School to the next, for example from our elementary schools to CCMS or from CCMS to CCHS, or whether they all will even be allowed to finish out the CCUSD school they are in. Any significant or sudden drop in enrollment in the near future will likely be due to LAUSD's new permit policy, and definitely not to CCUSD's enrollment cap. CCUSD wants to keep all its existing permit students.
Some reasons given for the School District adopting the enrollment cap by various board members include: to end overcrowding and/or to make sure overcrowding doesn't happen at the Middle School or high school and CCHS, to achieve enrollment levels that are more beneficial for all our students, and to reduce CCUSD's financial reliance on permits.
• Currently, CCUSD's best guess is that the incoming 6th grade at the Middle School this year will be in the 440-450 student range due to how LAUSD is currently releasing permits. The enrollment cap is not expected to be reached for 6th grade. The number of 5th graders currently graduating from our elementary schools each year, including permits, is about 450 students.
• CCUSD has said they should have a much better handle on all the enrollment numbers in a couple of weeks. They will let the public know what the enrollment numbers are looking like as soon as they do.
Mr. Gray may be contacted at gray@beitler.com
