School Board member Scott Zeidman’s suggestion to limit inter-district permits with a “soft cap” could have a profound effect on our housing and apartment market.
Limiting permits would make residency the surest way of being accepted into the CCUSD. This should increase demand for local housing and apartments. Along with rising demand comes the promise of rising prices for housing and apartment rents.
We’re Outta Here
Since the government has reported that 30 percent of the Baby Boomer-aged teachers will retire in the next seven to 10 years, should we not survey our teachers about what their future plans are? Of course, with the state's seemingly ever-decreasing funding for education, these future teacher retirements probably would not involve any District monetary incentives.
New Thinking
It may be simplistic, but in these times of decreasing state funding, maybe we could justify limiting permits by saying we need to decrease our student population due to teacher retirements and the lack of promised, sustained state funding to sustain the hiring of new teachers. We usually hire or lay off teachers based on annual student population. But could the District reverse that thinking and base the student population on the number of teachers in the District?
Permit Junkies
Past School Boards have used incoming permits as a local quick fix, viewing permit families as eager cash cows. Over the years, Board permit decisions have turned the Culver City district into a permit junkie. The LAUSD’s threat to pull back its permits exposed the fiscal addiction to permits that our district and other districts have. Districts were threatened with having to go through their own painful budgetary withdrawals cold turkey.
Mr. Zeidman is right; we need to reduce our dependence on inter-district permits. But there should be a comprehensive plan to reduce our inter-district permits.
Out of Balance
Compounding this problem, Culver City seems to be out of balance in its ratio of primary to secondary students. Too many middle and high school students are enrolled for the number of elementary school students in the District to support.
What, you may ask, does our elementary enrollment have to do with our middle and high schools? Funding.
This inconsistency of funding has haunted me for years, ever since I was brash (or naïve) enough to ask the question: “How much money does the District spend on my daughters’ education?” The standard, pat answer I received from our elementary principal was that the District received, at the time, about $4,000 (in Average Daily Attendance funds) for every student’s education.
Funding Is Not Student-Based
Fact: As a unified school district, Culver City receives the same amount of ADA funds for every student’s attendance in the district, whether for a primary or secondary student.
Fact: In fiscal year 2007-08, California School Services reported that high school districts received about $1100 more in ADA funding than elementary school districts.
According to the state’s own ADA funding, it costs more to educate an average high school student than an average elementary school student.
How does that extra money for the costlier middle school and high school educations work its way up from the elementary schools into the secondary schools?
For You and You and You and You
Since the Culver City district is not run on a student-based budget system, the District’s ADA funding is mixed together into one big funding pot. Then the School Board is asked to vote funding for individual programs. When all the funds are handed out, more money goes out to fund secondary programs than to fund elementary programs.
Mr. Laase may be contacted at GMlaase@aol.com
