School Frenzy: What Are We Missing Here?

Around this time every year, the L.A. Times does a big story about the frantic last-minute frenzy among Angeleno parents to get their kid in a proper school; this year, it’s also the basis of a story line on “Entourage.”

An excerpt from the Times story:

By law, every child is ensured a spot in a public school. But for this mass of families, the neighborhood school typically is not the preferred choice.

The Los Angeles school district’s magnet office tries to help. So does its open enrollment office. A call to a school — public or private — can uncover unexpected openings; informal parent networks also accumulate information. Parents often find that the local public school is better than first presumed, or has a special and worthy program within the larger campus that they can settle on.

Then there are parents who lie to get into a school, which can backfire if a school investigates.

“It was really difficult when my daughter didn’t get a sibling permit” for an in-demand Westside school, said Kerry Allen. “Because I know families who used false addresses.”

Other parents have worn out shoe leather, spent evenings poring over test scores and attended lotteries.

Debra, who lives in North Hollywood, visited seven public schools in recent months. Like other parents in limbo, Debra asked that her last name not be used, for fear that publicity could hurt her son’s chances of getting into a school.

She had started at her neighborhood campus, where, she said she was told there was no advanced curriculum for her entering kindergartner, who can read.

So she turned elsewhere. Her son sits more than 100 deep on the waiting list at Sherman Oaks Elementary. At the Community Magnet, just west of the Bel-Air Country Club, he is so far down that “they said there’s not really a chance.”…

Debra’s other favored options, at this point, are two private schools; each would cost about $20,000 a year. She’s not sure she can afford that on her husband’s salary as a stuntman. She once ran a modeling agency but currently works part-time.

There’s also a desperate back-up plan: Rent out the family’s North Hollywood house and move to a Malibu trailer park to qualify for schools there. But the seller wants $400,000 for the trailer, and hookups are at least $2,000 more a month, she said.

What??? Spending $20,000 a year on a kindergarten class? The paper goes on to mention the booming “educational consultant” business, in which parents hire an outsider to investigate what’s going on inside the schools, and whether or not they’ve been blacklisted. (Yup, blacklisting really happens.)

Am I crazy? Am I doing Blogger Toddler a disservice by not getting caught up in all of this craziness? The elementary school close to our house is far from perfect, and is even lower-performing than other schools in the area. But I’m not losing sleep over it. I grew up attending mostly average public schools (ranging from a strong DOD elementary school to a rather weak high school), but managed to make the best of it all and turn out fine. Is too much made in L.A. of demanding the best school, no questions asked?

(Flickr pic by Confuzn.)

Angeleno of the Week: "Zoner"

(Pic from the L.A. Times.)

Launching a new Friday feature here at Franklin Avenue: The Angeleno of the Week. It could be a person, a place, an organization, a business… anything that made the week that was… well, the week that was.

And that brings us to teenage tagger “Zoner” (whose real name has been left out of news articles due to his age). The kid’s 15 minutes of fame began earlier this week when he scrawled his nickname on a bus — but not just any old bus.

Nope, Zoner, a Santee High School student, managed to unfortunately pick the bus carrying Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and LAUSD District Supt. David L. Brewer — as well as a Los Angeles Times photog, who snapped the above photo. The luminaries were there to tout a new bus stop meant to help Santee students avoid walking through rough neighborhoods.

The irony was rich enough. But what happened after made the week even more bizarre. Zoner suddenly became the hottest commodity in all of local politics. Mayor Villaraigosa first argued that Zoner should suffer the consequences — then suddenly scrambled to sign up as a mentor to the teen (who wasn’t actually consulted on that scenario). The Santee principal was less than thrilled, and said Villaraigosa would have to undergo the same sort of testing and clearance that all mentors go through.

That didn’t sit well with Villaraigosa, who suddenly had an itch to mentor Zoner today. The latest is covered by the LA Times here.

Meanwhile, according to the Times, sudden celeb Zoner has become a folk hero to his classmates at Santee. Coming next: A cover story in the L.A. Times’ West magazine. (That’s a joke. Or is it?)

Congrats to “Zoner,” Franklin Avenue’s first Angeleno of the Week!

Angeleno of the Week: "Zoner"

(Pic from the L.A. Times.)

Launching a new Friday feature here at Franklin Avenue: The Angeleno of the Week. It could be a person, a place, an organization, a business… anything that made the week that was… well, the week that was.

And that brings us to teenage tagger “Zoner” (whose real name has been left out of news articles due to his age). The kid’s 15 minutes of fame began earlier this week when he scrawled his nickname on a bus — but not just any old bus.

Nope, Zoner, a Santee High School student, managed to unfortunately pick the bus carrying Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and LAUSD District Supt. David L. Brewer — as well as a Los Angeles Times photog, who snapped the above photo. The luminaries were there to tout a new bus stop meant to help Santee students avoid walking through rough neighborhoods.

The irony was rich enough. But what happened after made the week even more bizarre. Zoner suddenly became the hottest commodity in all of local politics. Mayor Villaraigosa first argued that Zoner should suffer the consequences — then suddenly scrambled to sign up as a mentor to the teen (who wasn’t actually consulted on that scenario). The Santee principal was less than thrilled, and said Villaraigosa would have to undergo the same sort of testing and clearance that all mentors go through.

That didn’t sit well with Villaraigosa, who suddenly had an itch to mentor Zoner today. The latest is covered by the LA Times here.

Meanwhile, according to the Times, sudden celeb Zoner has become a folk hero to his classmates at Santee. Coming next: A cover story in the L.A. Times’ West magazine. (That’s a joke. Or is it?)

Congrats to “Zoner,” Franklin Avenue’s first Angeleno of the Week!