The Count
Farragut School and Lin Howe School each will lose one kindergarten class, leaving both schools with three, and La Ballona will gain a fourth kindergarten class.
For El Marino, the Districts most beribboned school, it was a pleasant outcome to a weeks-long drumbeat of anger and argument over retention of the highly specialized class.
Unanticipated
Perhaps the most surprised person was School District Supt. Dr. Myrna Rivera Cote.
I could not have foreseen or predicted this outcome two weeks ago, she told the newspaper this afternoon.
Dr. Cote attributed the reversal to a confluence of several events that apparently included a strong dose of spontaneity.
The Mainspring
We were pro-active, Dr. Cote began to explain. I had all of the principals and some teachers contact all parents who wanted to come into the District on permits. Then we followed up, in writing and by telephone.
One of the main reasons a reduction in kindergarten classes was proposed was that LAUSD was not releasing non-Culver City families at a very fast rate to enter the District. But the pace picked up earlier this month, and new people, somewhat unexpectedly, became available.
More That Was Unplanned
There was one more instant of spontaneity in Dr. Cotes view.
The attendant publicity that accompanied the outbreak of protests, she reasons, drove some undecided parents to plunge in and promptly enroll their children.
The numbers are really quite good, Dr. Cote said.
El Marinos vaunted waiting list has been emptied, with the children channeled into El Marino, not elsewhere, which is what the school wanted to do all along.
Task Is Not Complete
The crest of the crisis has passed, Dr. Cote said as she was embarking on a holiday. But declining enrollment is a long-term situation. We have to work on a District-wide solution.
Looking and sounding exhausted from the high-decibel emotions spent so publicly this month, Dr. Cote declared one overarching resolve. I do not intend to go through this again next year, she said.
Height of Unrest
The darkest days of spring arrived earlier this month.
On June 12, in a huge explosion of protest at the next to last School Board meeting for the school year, a veritable army of El Marino parents and supporters turned out to inveigh against the complicated School District plan to cut kindergarten classes at select schools.
Spreading the pain around, was the way some parents cynically described the strategu.
El Marino partisans said it was not fair since it had on its waiting list enough students to stock the normal fourth Spanish Immersion Program.
A Factor?
Whether the voluble protest was a key restorative factor or not probably will continue to be debated.
