L.A. Unified To Ban Kids from Agoura Schools

Three Los Angeles County school district superintendents plan to join together to appeal to their counterparts in Los Angeles Unified to continue to allow 3000 city students to attend classes in their neighboring districts who legally live in LAUSD’s district.

The students who attend school elsewhere bring in state funding that totals in the millions of dollars to their districts that would otherwise go to the LAUSD if the students were enrolled there as they should be but have taken advantage of the district’s liberal inter-district permit policy.

Las Virgenes, Santa Monica-Malibu and Culver City will bear the brunt of LAUSD’s decision to pull back on their policy, which resulted in a loss of state funding of more than $50 million because it allowed more than 12,000 students to enroll in neighboring districts. Students in Malibu, Calabasas and Agoura Hills will also be affected.

LAUSD currently receives about $500 per enrolled student from the state and wants to retain the majority of those students—and the state funding they bring in—due to the $640 million budget deficit and the potential layoff of thousands of teachers in the coming school year.

Although all districts in California are facing massive cutbacks in state funding, the budget deficit LAUSD will incur is the largest in the state. However, the district will offer exemptions for the children of parents who work in other cities and those students who are completing their final year in out-of-district elementary, middle and high schools. Parents can also appeal rejections to the Los Angeles County Department of Education or request applications to other districts on an individual basis.