Posted on 09/05/2006 7:07:49 AM PDT by truthkeeper
Pupil Rolls Drop At Schools
Officials fault rise in housing prices
WHITTIER - The surge in Southland housing prices has been cited as an important factor in an exodus of families from the Whittier area, causing a steep decline in K-12 enrollment in almost all local school districts.
The loss of students translates into big money, with the South Whittier School District losing more than a half million dollars in revenue during 2005-06 school year 2005-06 because of a 12 percent enrollment drop.
District officials project a loss of at least $1 million for 2006-07, said David Morton, the district's chief business officer.
"Declining enrollment has drastic effects," Morton said. "Average daily attendance makes a huge difference. In addressing it, you can't bring costs down as fast as you're losing revenue."
Whittier City Unified School District lost about 400 students in the past year, prompting Superintendent Carmella Franco to start tracking where families were moving to.
She found that nearly a quarter of those had moved out of state - even out of the country - the top three destinations being Arizona, Texas and Mexico.
"I was very interested to find out where they were going," Franco said. "So I asked my staff to build a record from transcript requests. Nearly 50 percent of California districts are experiencing declining enrollment. Meanwhile, the Inland Empire is growing like crazy. "They're getting the funds that we should be getting," she added.
(Excerpt) Read more at whittierdailynews.com ...
At least they haven't stuck my grandson in some bilingual class...yet...
Welcome to TX!
And just what do they do with these funds? Certainly not educate the children.
:o)
...the term "Inland Empire" seems to have frightening connotations.
Inland Empire has been used for a very long time.
Whittier has a huge Hispanic population, largely illegal. So, all those rental properties are turning into newly gentrified neighborhoods. Sounds like a positive thing to me.
Uhhhh, did that go with this thread?
Ah. Which thread did the quote come from? Looks like it might be interesting...
I would bet you dollars to donuts these drops are really coming as a result of closer scrutiny of the student rolls by the state IG. 12% in a year is hugh!
Californians poison the political environment wherever they go. All across the West are areas where people are sick and tired of Californians taking over everything and re-making all of the CFs that caused them to leave California in the first place.
"Redneck in training - please be patient"
The same thing is happening in parts of our district in San Jose also. The older part near downtown has declining enrollment, but the southern more suburban area has increasing enrollment. The district has declining enrollment overall.
The district decided to close several schools last year. You would think they would close them in the northern part of the district. But they didn't. They closed my kids' school in the southern part of the district.
It wouldn't have been good for the poor northern schools to have been closed, even if they have horrible test scores. Closing those schools would have impacted the neighborhood too much.
So they closed a school with great test scores in an an area with increasing enrollment.
We're in private this year, and we love it. It is full of sensible people running it.
They would still be very comfortable there now, the 11th grade is reading at a 6th grade level.
If it still existed...the mods got him quickly.
Anyway, I guess I'm not going anywhere soon.
That,s one of the reasons Mrs. dearolddad decided to leave Southern CA about 10 years ago.
"the top three destinations being Arizona, Texas and Mexico."
What that translates into is mostly illegals, since those going to Texas or Arizona are likely illegal as well.
Dang.
Yeah - put up their feet and put a "Don not disturb" sign on the door. This attitude almost goes hand in hand when tenure is achieved.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.