Ladera Heights

By Brian Block

Now that we oppose the Ladera petition, the Board must take further steps to reverse the overstuffing of our Middle and High Schools.

Ladera Heights has been a source of contention in Culver City. Many people, including myself, feel betrayed by this board for their lack of attention and failure to provide the public with timely information. Most Culver City residents do not want their schools bloated with students from outside Culver City. But are you aware that the administrators, and this school board, has been stuffing our Middle School and High School with permit students for at least three years, and perhaps even more?

According to the School Accountability reports of the past three years, and the Star Testing Reports of the same period, the combined 5th grade population of the Culver City Schools has remained constant at approximately 500 students per year. Yet the population of our entering Middle School 6th Grade class has exploded from approximately 1500 students to 1745 students. Obviously, our administrators and school board have secretly placed students on permit, who come from outside Culver City, in our schools.

Most people are against Ladera Heights joining the Culver City School District because of the negative effect on traffic, the increase in class size, and other concerns about a large percentage of non-residential student population. As most parents of Middle School students know, these conditions already exist in our schools. While the school board, at the October 11, 2005 meeting, unanimously voted against having Ladera Heights join Culver City Schools, NOT ONE OF THEM SAID ONE WORD ABOUT REDUCING OUR SCHOOLS TO PRE-2002 LEVELS. In fact, even when presented with their own report showing that the Middle School is currently over its capacity of 1674, none said that the number of students enrolled needs to be reduced. In fact, Assistant Superintendent El Fattal said that they planned to put temporary classes to house the students, rather than discuss reducing the 1,026 total permits in our school district (346 new this year).

As anyone who attended the October 1, 2005 hearing knows, Inglewood will not let Ladera Heights leave their district without a fight and a vote, and they will vote against Ladera Heights leaving their district. (Would we let the Culver Crest Hills leave Culver City?) Their district has spent over 15 million dollars improving the school that services Ladera Heights, and Inglewood does not want to lose it's most affluent residents. Unlike our own school board, they were informed, prepared with legal counsel ready to fight to keep their community intact. Thank you, Inglewood school district, for doing what our school board has yet to do.

It appears that the Ladera Heights issue was a way to direct attention away from the continual increase of permits students that has occurred under the Culver City School Board. Stopping the Ladera petition is only the first step: to save our schools, we as parents and community members must continue to apply pressure to reduce the number of outside permits already granted by the district, and reduce our district to a smaller and more appropriate number.