Its been a long time since I've contributed to The Huffington Post. For various reasons, but mostly because I've been involved with work and yelling at my kids to do their homework.
About two years ago, it dawned on my husband and me that we could no longer afford private school and expect to be able to pay for a college education for both our girls.
My older daughter was almost finished with high school, so it became my mission to try to get my younger daughter into a public school that would suit her needs.
Our district school was University High School. It was a 20 minute drive with good traffic, whereas Beverly Hills High school was down the street. My younger daughter was a level 3 competitive cheerleader, so we were schlepping back and forth to Pasadena from our home in Westwood because, darnit, people on the Westside didn't seem to have any spirit! Beverly Hills High School had a competitive cheer team. Uni had a marginal cheer program, and, frankly, the school was low performing. Beverly High, even though we were out of district, was chock full of kids that my daughter had grown up with. I should also mention that it was my Alma Mater. It seemed like a perfect fit, so I embarked on the process of obtaining an inter-district permit and was told to apply for an Opportunity Permit. It wasn't easy. At first LAUSD refused to release me from my district, but I wrote a letter of appeal and they relented. The bad news is, I had to eat the cost of an entire year's tuition at the private school my daughter attended because they don't let you know if you're admitted until the first several days of the school year. That wasn't so pleasant. But, we were thrilled to be in a position to go to the high school the following year.
Well ... during the first several months of school, I started to hear rumors that the Beverly HIlls School board wasn't going to renew the Opportunity Permits. Swell. Evidently, and this was before the economy took a nosedive, mind you, the district was looking at the possibility of going into Basic Aid. This is a situation where, if the city collects property taxes that exceed the amount that the state provides for education, then the state says "Hey, you don't need us. You can cover it. Have a nice day." That meant the schools no longer got money for the kids on permits.
So, for years and years, when the attendance was low and they needed permit kids in order to get funding for all sorts of wonderful programs, their doors were wide open. But, now, when there was a suggestion that they might go into Basic Aid, they were falling all over each other trying to justify giving our kids the boot. Some kids who have been there their whole lives. Some, like my daughter, who had already transferred once, without any expectation of having to do it again.
The Beverly Hills School Board brought in two Basic Aid experts (and I was at these meetings, so this isn't hearsay) who said that the cost to the district to maintain the permit kids until they matriculated was 'budget dust'. That the schools already had the books and the teachers. That they could go in and out of Basic Aid and it was risky to alienate these families because they might need them.
The board had already decided not to offer any more permits, but they wouldn't even acknowledge that attrition would also take place and there would be less and less kids. So, last year, they were promoting 'natural cut-offs'. That is, 1st grade through 5th (then you're out), 6th-8th (then you're out) and 9th-2th.
But this year it got really nasty. There were elections and the campaigns and shenanigans were so disgusting I can't begin to describe them. The misinformation promulgated by the Beverly Hills School Board members to the residents of Beverly Hills was so specious or downright dishonest it sickened me. The residents got the idea that the Permit families were "freeloaders." First of all, they were getting money for our kids! Over $6,000 a year! Second of all, their own property taxes weren't entirely used by the state for education. So, for instance, if someone paid $12,000 a year in property taxes, around $1,500 of that went to education. This is a number calculated by a forensic accountant who has his kids on an Opportunity Permit, but has also been hired to work on the Beverly Hills School District's budget from time to time. He knows how it works. So, if a resident has 3 kids, the district gets around $500 a year for that child. If a permit family has 3 kids, the district gets around $18,000 a year. They claimed we brought down property values. This also isn't true. Our kids are some of the highest performing scholastically, and have raised the school's API scores. When we point that out, we're told we're shaming them. And they never complained about property values when they needed us.
People I knew from pre-school shunned me or gave me dirty looks. The bottom line is, the Beverly HIlls School Board is now composed of people who are putting into policy that none of the Opportunity Permits are going to be renewed. (Legacy permits will be renewed. These are for people who went to the school and have grandparents currently living and paying taxes in Beverly HIlls). This is devastating to say the least.
They cavalierly suggest that we 'just move into the district.' As if we haven't tried. Part of their propaganda has been to say that we sit in our mansions and say "why should we move if we don't have to?" Well, I bought my house in 1979. It was $280,000. Remember those prices? Anyway, what I would get for my house now wouldn't buy me a one bedroom house or condo in Beverly Hills. We've investigated this countless times, believe me. Many of them claim they've made sacrifices. I doubt they'd be willing to make the sacrifice they're asking some of us to make. Meanwhile, the school board spent a good deal of money slandering us when they could have funded efforts to curb residency fraud. A light needs to be shone on this. I'm sure Beverly Hills has the money and clout to fight this unjust and unwarranted war.