For the first time since the mid-1990s, the Hermosa Beach City School District reported a decline in enrollment for the academic year, with much of the drop coming from disenrolled kindergarteners.
According to district enrollment figures, there are 28 fewer students than were enrolled when the last academic year finished in June, and 41 fewer students than were enrolled when school began September 2014.
In the time in between when the district opened enrollment in mid-March and now, 26 kindergarteners have been disenrolled, said Superintendent Patricia Escalante. By comparison, the district disenrolled 59 students in grades 1 through 8, and enrolled 66 new students.
The decline comes as the district temporarily abandons its full-day kindergarten program. Full-day kindergarten began as a pilot program at Hermosa View School in the 2011-12 school year, and educators expanded it to the rest of the district the following year.
Although both Redondo and Manhattan Beach schools run half-day kindergarten schedules, Escalante said that the move to the shorter schedule likely contributed to the decline.
“We know that changing from a full-day to a half-day schedule is not ideal,” Escalante said at the school board’s meeting last Wednesday. “Many districts in the area are moving towards a full day, and we want to get back there.”
District officials said that a number of parents indicated on their disenrollment form that their child would be attending a private kindergarten. Our Lady of Guadalupe School, which offers K-8 instruction, has seen a notable impact on its kindergarten program for this year.
“We have had a lot of phone calls,” said School Secretary Adela Vuruca. “We had to have a waiting list. We didn’t have room for everyone.”
School Board member Lisa Claypoole said that she viewed the enrollment decline as driven by the way the altered schedule strained childcare needs for families with two working parents, rather than a lack of confidence in the district as a whole.
“I am not greatly concerned,” she said. “Parents do what they can do to make their lives work, and you can’t fault them for that.”
Escalante said she is also sympathetic to parents who made the switch because of concerns about child care.
“In a way, that makes sense,” the superintendent said in an interview. “Pre-school programs often offer a kindergarten option so there’s some continuity, and kindergarten is not mandated by the state.”
The California Education Code does not require that a student attend kindergarten, mandating instead that a student enroll in school by age six, when most students are in first grade. But Hermosa’s full-day kindergarten program proved extremely popular among parents. Claypoole described it as a way the district could attract students by differentiating itself.
“We became one of the first districts to have a full-day program, and we had a great increase in enrollment,” Claypoole said.
Enrollment data largely confirm Claypoole’s argument. In September 2012, the first academic year in which the program was offered throughout the district, total enrollment jumped by 65 students from the level it attained in June 2012, going from 1333 to 1398 students.
But students who enrolled for the kindergarten program mostly stayed there, and as the district’s enrollment swelled, its facilities became strained. The district chose to end full-day kindergarten as a way of dealing with the overcrowding in the wake of the failure of a school bond measure.
Parents thinking of enrolling in the district had come to take the longer hours as a given, putting the onus on the district to improve facilities.
“There has been some real unhappiness,” Claypoole said. “Not happiness as in, ‘Oh, you had this great program for a while.’ It’s ‘How are you taking this away from me?’ We need to get out and pass a bond.”
Because the bulk of school district financing is tied to a measurement of its average daily attendance, the decline in enrollment could potentially impact the district’s finances.
Angela Jones, business manager for the school district, said that the school’s finances are healthy for this year, and that state law entitles the district to be funded based on last year’s attendance levels. But, she said, the district needs to reach out to parents to see how many of those choosing an alternative kindergarten will be joining the district for first grade to assess future programming capabilities.
“They give you one year to get your financial house in order,” Jones said. ER
