District could reopen to nonresident students
SMMUSD HDQTRS. — For the second straight year, the Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District will have fewer students attending classes, which will most likely mean fewer dollars to pay for books, teachers’ aides and security guards.
The two-year decrease in enrollment is relatively small, and district officials, although investigating the causes, said they are not alarmed.
“The impact for us will not be significant,” said Douglas Staine, director of human resources for the district. “It will be easy to absorb.”
Part of a district-wide plan to reduce class size, the drop in enrollment was celebrated by those who saw it as much-needed relief for students and teachers learning and working in crowded classrooms.
However, if the decline continues and begins to negatively affect the district’s ability to provide services, school board members said they may lift a moratorium on students who live outside of the district attending local schools. By doing so, the district could make up for the loss in funds, but smaller class sizes would be sacrificed in return.
“If you are reducing enrollment, you lose revenue,” school board member Jose Escarce said. “This has happened because we decided to reduce the number of students from outside the district. We did that because we were growing too large and parents wanted schools to have a sense of community.”
But, Escarce said, it may be time to start examining and evaluating the consequences of the moratorium, which was enacted five years ago.
Out-of-district students make up roughly 20 percent of the local student body. District policy currently states that new permits for nonresident students to attend Santa Monica schools will only be issued to children of district or city employees of Santa Monica and Malibu. If a student with an out-of-district permit graduates or leaves the district for other reasons, that person’s permit is not reissued.
“It’s really a sometimes painful trade-off,” Escarce said. “You can try to keep the district big and maintain that revenue, or try for smaller classes without cutting, but you have to figure out how to do that without more money.”
In the upcoming school year, the district is expected see a decline of 201 students, or 1.6 percent of the total student population. This amounts to a roughly $1.2 million loss in government funding, according to district reports. That is on top of the 364-student decline the year before, a hit of about $2 million.
Some schools have seen slight enrollment gains, including the elementary schools of Franklin (up 1.8 percent), Edison (up.5 percent) and Webster (up 1.2 percent). Others saw significant drops, including Olympic High School, with a 35 percent drop, and John Adams Middle School with a decline of 5.4 percent.
The figures for the upcoming year are not final and may fluctuate over the next few months. Kindergarten projections are only “a best guess” based on past trends, Staine said. He added that recent housing development near John Muir and McKinley elementary schools may help to raise enrollment.
In the coming weeks, Staine will be meeting with principals at all schools to better assess enrollment for the board of education.
“But until the kids show up in September, we really don’t know 100 percent,” he said.
While the moratorium on out-of-district permits set by school board members may be contributing to the decrease in school enrollment, others factors might also be in play. These factors include the city’s hot real estate market and high concentration of young, single renters and condo owners.
“This (dive in enrollment) is very consistent with what is happening in schools in urban areas across Los Angeles County,” Staine said. “When you reach capacity in terms of facilities, or you have more expensive housing or competition for housing … there tends to be a rate of decline or a rate of stabilization of a population.”
On the other hand, areas like San Bernardino County and states such as Arizona are experiencing rapid growth due to new home construction, hence an increase in their student populations, Staine said.
“If we didn’t do anything, we would probably lose about 250 students per year,” said school board member Julia Brownley. “I think we will be having some serious discussions about this in the next few months. We want to keep the smaller class sizes and these smaller learning communities. I think if we wanted to increase enrollment, all we would have to do is reopen our permit process. Our district is desirable, and I know many people would like to attend here.”
Others, however, worry that the fix might not be that simple. If the district reopens the permit process, there could be a flood of new students and not enough teachers to handle them. However, if the moratorium continues, enrollment could drop to the point that teachers could be laid off.
“It’s a double-edged sword,” said Harry Keiley, president of the Santa Monica- Malibu Teachers Association. “We certainly welcome smaller schools, particularly in our middle and high schools that are overcrowded, but we are concerned with the loss of revenue. We certainly have suggestions on where we need to reduce our spending, and that reduction would come from the top down. If anyone is talking about laying off teachers, that’s outrageous.”
Staine said there are no orders for teacher layoffs or transfers at this time.
Laura Rosenbaum, president of the Santa Monica-Malibu Council of PTAs, said parents in general are pleased with the enrollment figures and are not worried about classes being underfunded.
“We have no fears about losing teachers or classes,” Rosenbaum said. “We are glad that we have a district where the school board is very cognizant of this and is looking at ways to deal with (the drop in enrollment) while preserving services. I think this really shows how important the facilities planning process that we are involved in right now is so important. We need to get as many people as we can involved so that we can decide, among other things, what size and type of district we want.”
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on February 20, 2006. Read the original PDF.