Although the Ladera transfer is on appeal and the outcome is an unknown distance from being final, the School Board member’s question may be moot because of two defeats the movement has sustained.
After six months of controversy that has aroused hundreds of Culver City families, the feverish talk has abated only slightly in the four weeks since the County made a pivotal ruling.
On Jan. 18, the County Board of Education turned down the attempt by Ladera families to transfer their children from the low-ranked Inglewood District to far more prestigious Culver City. The County’s decision came about ninety days after Culver City’s School Board voted five to nothing to oppose the transfer.
The hopes of disappointed Ladera families still are flickering if not burning brightly. Last week, they filed an appeal with the agency of last resort, the State Board of Education. Officials anticipate a decision will not be made for months.
Ever since the proposed transfer of students living in the upscale Ladera Heights neighborhood became known in adjacent Culver City late last summer, the atmosphere, according to close watchers, has been racially charged .
The fact that ninety-seven and a half percent of the children identified for transfer are black has been a persistent, but diplomatically unarticulated, subtext , they said. Privately, parents have admitted the race factor has influenced or fueled the most emotional components of the disagreements.
Figuring Out an Answer
Perhaps the most compact response to Mr. Bubar’s rhetorical inquiry came from Cheryl Cook of Ladera Heights. Prominent in recent news accounts, she is one of the principal point persons in the transfer movement.
According to Ms. Cook, not that many children live in Ladera Heights. She said the difference between the present head count of three hundred and thirty-seven and the number who would like to change districts if the transfer is approved — obviously indeterminate — necessarily would be modest.
Following an in-house survey conducted last summer, “there may be no agreement on the ‘correct’ number of school-age kids in Ladera,” she told thefrontpageonline.com. “But it definitely is way below the number of permits the Culver City School District grants. The number is around five hundred-plus.”
By contrast, Ms. Cook said, the School District dispenses more than thirteen hundred permits “to out-of-the-area students.”
The estimated number of children in Ladera Heights is six hundred and eleven, and after considerable research, she prepared an analysis.
Addressing skeptics or anyone fearing a gigantic student invasion from Ladera Heights, Ms. Cook said that “many” Ladera households prefer to have their children educated in the private sector. “Those who have kids at schools like Harvard Westlake and The Willows in Culver City will not be pulling them out because of our transfer,” she said.
“We just want to have a decent public school option for those who cannot afford a private education.”
In Favor of Smaller Classes
On behalf of her son, Ms. Cook last week toured the Wiseburn School District in Hawthorne/El Segundo. “They have great test scores, and they want the families of Ladera Heights,” she said. “But I was not interested in putting my son in a junior high with over seven hundred students.
“I prefer private schools because of the small size. I hope that I can continue (my son) Gerald at a private school.”
In recent correspondence with George Laase, essayist for thefrontpageonline.com, Ms. Cook broke down the numbers of children living in Ladera Heights by destination. Of the unofficial total of six hundred and eleven, a scant ninety-seven attend Inglewood’s public schools.
One hundred and ten are not of school age, twenty-one already are enrolled in Culver City schools, and three hundred and eighty-three attend private schools or public schools in other districts.
Ms. Cook is not sure whether everyone in Ladera responded to the community survey. But the totals on her desk correlate favorably with the 2000 government census.
A second factor crucial to the still-breathing transfer debate is that finding space for children from Ladera Heights should not be a problem.
For supporting evidence, Ms. Cook pointed to a statement made last autumn by Dist. Supt. Dr. Laura McGaughey to the Culver City News.
“The District has two school sites rented out right now because of declining enrollment,” Dr. McGaughey said. “Since the possible transfer wouldn’t go through until at least 2007, District officials would have time to plan.”