LAUSD Rejects Pali Funding Request

An application for more than $1 million in funds to address years of delayed maintenance and accommodate expansion of student enrollment at Palisades Charter High School was rejected by the Los Angeles Unified School District in early January. This means that the school’s plans to modernize the library, relieve overcrowding at the cafeteria and build needed lockers will continue to be shelved. L.A. voters have approved several school bonds since 2004, including Measure R, that promised to repair and upgrade aging school infrastructure, reduce overcrowding and furnish classrooms and libraries at charter schools. But PaliHi’s requests for a piece of the $120 million allotted for charters have been rejected, delaying many school plans. Last year, when PaliHi’s earlier application for nearly $1 million was rejected, school officials felt confused by the district’s budgeting process. The district’s rejection of their application this year has left administrators feeling no less confused’and even a little slighted. ‘They gave us a blanket rejection,’ said Greg Wood, chief business officer at PaliHi. ‘It wasn’t an all-or-nothing application. We were applying for several things.’ Enrollment at PaliHi has increased nearly 60 percent since the early 1990s, and the school has added 400 students, or 16 percent, since 2002, bringing enrollment to 2,780. Because growth in school infrastructure has not kept pace with the increase in enrollment, students and teachers share fewer and fewer resources, say administrators. For example, dozens of teachers do not have their own classrooms. According to school estimates, there are only three library books per student, and hundreds of books lie haphazardly stacked in the library because of a shortage of shelf space. A lack of cafeteria tables means that hundreds of students don’t have tables for lunchtime, and hundreds of students who not have their own lockers. Despite the school’s needs for funding after years of growing enrollment, the district rejected PaliHi’s application because the school had no future plans to continue expanding. ‘The basis for the program was the expansion of charter seats,’ said Ken Hargreaves, director of operations and new construction for LAUSD. ‘In the case of PaliHi, they were not expanding. We don’t try to be hard on the charters, but we have to apply consistency.’ Although the school reserves more than 40 percent of its seats for students from ‘severely overcrowded’ schools throughout the city, the image of Pacific Palisades as a wealthy community unfairly hampers PaliHi’s ability to acquire funding from the district, said Amy Held, executive director. Accessing the district’s bond money has eluded not only PaliHi but many other charter schools as well. ‘At the rate charters are growing’about 20 per year’the district has promised scraps,’ said Gary Larson, spokesperson for the California Charter Schools Association (CCSA). ‘And they’re not even allocating that money. That’s frustrating.’ More than half of the $120 million that the district has allocated for charter schools remains unspent or unallocated. Still, Hargreaves said that he has facilitated 11,000 new seats at charters using Measure R funding. The CCSA has met with LAUSD to facilitate funding for charter schools, but PaliHi’s repeated failure to secure district funding has lowered its expectations. ‘This process has dampened our enthusiasm,’ said Wood, who will be tasked with preparing any future applications. ‘It seems like if they want to give you money, you’ll get it. If they don’t, you won’t. That’s the sense I get.’ PaliHi receives the overwhelming majority of its funding from the state Department of Education, which will also reimburse the school for hundreds of thousands of dollars next school year. Sometime this month, Pali students and teachers will begin to use nine new portable classrooms given by the district. The school hoped to use part of its $1-million request to furnish the classrooms, but the school will now have to use its own budget instead. Administrators hope that the classrooms will reduce overcrowding and teacher-traveling. ——— Reporting by Staff Writer Max Taves. E-mail: reporter@palipost.com Phone: (310) 985-1607 ext. 28.