The calamitous LA Unified School District has been fodder for the news for several years now. Despite all the negative press, they’ve done little to improve their reputation or competency. It’s no wonder so many of their schools are being turned into charter schools and that parents are seeking alternatives such as educating their children privately or through homeschooling.
Now they’ve made front page news again, with a story illustrating their continued waste of state funding. In a front page story entitled, “L.A. Unified schools won’t lack for space,” in the Los Angeles Times dated Monday June 23rd, the school district states they are continuing to build schools despite falling enrollment. Because of the loss of students, these schools and extra classrooms currently being built will most likely stay empty.
The funds being used for this construction, came from four bonds worth $20 billion dollars that were ushered in by local voters in a period of overcrowding in the school district a decade ago. However, since that time, the district has experienced a declining enrollment of over 57,000 students so the need for more schools is no longer there but LAUSD continues to build.
One of their arguments for continuing building is to provide for smaller class sizes. The only way they can reduce class size though, is by hiring more teachers. But the funding from these bonds can only be used for construction and modernization of school sites and not for personnel so that means they can’t hire more educators. Therefore, they can’t reduce class size but they can increase the size of the classroom. However, the ratio of students to teacher still remains the same.
The district recently let go of over 500 support staff so that they wouldn’t lose teachers. It’s obvious they don’t have the funding to hire more educators so this theory of providing smaller class size just doesn’t hold up.
In this dire budget crisis, it would be more prudent if the district returned those monies to the state to help offset the financial constraint we’re in. To spend money on buildings, which will remain empty and unused, seems to be gross negligence on the part of the administration of LAUSD and a waste of much needed state funding!
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