The other day I was reading an article in the LA Times entitled, Funding could oust outside students from Beverly Hills schools, describes how the Beverly Hills School District will be eliminating out-of-district students within the next two years, as wished by Beverly residents, so that the 57 million per-year can go to “actual” residents. “ Within the article one mother and resident of Beverly states:
Out-of-district "parents should realize their free pass is up," said Denise Geller, who said she and her husband made sacrifices six years ago so they could buy a $1-million home in Beverly Hills and enroll their daughters in city schools. "If they really feel it is a great education, they should consider . . . moving to Beverly Hills."
According to the article more than, “16% of the district's 5,100 students are non-Beverly Hills residents attending city schools under special permits. About one-seventh of these permits were issued to increase racial and ethnic diversity at Beverly Hills High.”(The racial demographic stats are from a study done in 2008 on Wikipedia where about 17% of the 2,412 students at the school are of Asian descent, about 5% are Latino and about 7% are African American. 68% of the students are white.)
Although those permits will not be disposed upon students used for racial diversity, “nearly 500 students who bring in extra state dollars while rounding out class sizes and allowing the district to offer additional courses or activities -- middle-school French, higher-level math, a rich arts program -- are on the chopping block.”
This entire article reminded be of an experience I had the summer going into senior year of high school I attended an acting program at Northwestern. There were 162 of us in the program from all across the US and on my first day I overheard two girls saying they were from Beverly Hills. I was completely shocked since I knew no one from Beverly Hills, let alone LA. (It may be cliché, but growing-up I had always fantasized about Beverly Hills as where all the movie stars lived, where Cher from Clueless drove her jeep, the area code was: 90210, and more importantly a place where they served you chai tea and lattes in the hallways between classes in high school (as depicted in the movie The Beverly Hillbillies.) Needless to say, I had my preconceived notions about what living and being a student at Beverly Hills High School entailed.
When I got to know both of these girls from the program I asked them about their school. They said they attended the public Beverly Hills High School. Seeing my enthusiasm they quickly told me that Beverly School District was not a “good” school and that a lot of people were bused in, had fake addresses, or lived in very small apartments in Beverly Hills (Which, to them, may have meant less worthy citizens of Beverly Hills?) They emphasized that the “good” schools in LA were private.
The negativity they attributed to their school was the fault of the non-residents of Beverly Hills . This seemed a prevalent idea according to the article. The Mark Wild article about High School Districts in LA from the 30’s echoed this article for me. – do you agree? Is this a quieter form of district and racial segregation? Career planning? Do they consider out-of-district children a threat to the education of other student? How?- these are questions that the article stirs-up for me.
http://www.latimes.com/news/education/la-me-beverlyhills10-2009feb10,0,6484727.story?page=1
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