More Stability in Enrollment at Beach Cities Schools Seen

A long decline in student population has bottomed out in the South Bay’s beach cities and, after several more years of adjusting to much smaller enrollments, school districts serving the three communities should be able to proceed on a more even keel, administrators say.

“We have to hang in there for maybe another two years,” said Ed King, business manager for the South Bay Union High School District. “After that, we should be able to get on with educating kids in a more positive climate.”

South Bay Union and its elementary feeder districts in Redondo Beach, Manhattan Beach and Hermosa Beach have lost half or more of the student populations that crowded campuses in the boom years of the 1960s.

The losses--generally attributed to lower birthrates and high housing costs that keep out younger families with school-age children--have leveled off in the elementary system. But King said enrollment in the high schools is still dropping by as much as 400 students a year.

“It’s inevitable because we’re at the tail end of the process,” he said. “Our losses will continue until the declines of past years have worked their way up through the high schools.”

End of Slide

King said South Bay Union lost another 350 students this year, bringing enrollment down to 3,640 at two regular campuses and one continuation high school. The end of the slide should be reached in two or three years, he said, when the district expects to reach a stable level of about 2,800 students--a long, long way down from the 8,000 high of the 1960s.

Meanwhile, he said, the district must cope with annual financial crises that have forced teacher and staff layoffs and program reductions. State funding, based on average daily attendance in the schools, continues to fall, he said, and income from the $14-million sale of Aviation High School has declined with interest rates.

However, money from the property, sold about six years ago in South Bay Union’s most traumatic effort to adjust to declining enrollment, still contributes $1.2 million in interest income, King said.

Earlier this month, the district managed to avoid another heavy layoff when 22 of about 155 remaining teachers decided to take advantage of a sweetened early-retirement offer, he said.

He said the early retirements took care of most of a $1.3-million shortfall in the district’s $18-million budget.

“Through it all, we’re still doing good things for the kids,” King said. “Test scores are climbing, students are being accepted at major universities, and both of our campuses (Redondo Beach Union and Mira Costa) received recognition as distinguished schools by the state this year.”

Maintaining Programs

Elementary school officials in all three districts said their schools also have been able to maintain strong academic programs despite of steady shrinkage in state funding. And the 665-student Hermosa Beach district--which lost a staggering 69% of its enrollment since the early 1960s, when enrollment peaked at 2,150--has managed to add a few extra features--such as computers in every classroom, computerized library services, an open-space learning center and an expanded audio-visual program.

Such relative abundance, said Hermosa Beach Supt. Don Ryckman, has flowed from the district’s consolidation of operations to the remodeled and expanded Hermosa Valley school and from its success in converting surplus school property into money.

Income from the sale or lease of five closed schools funded the district’s reorganization, along with the new equipment, a bigger staff and smaller class sizes, Ryckman said. Even with all that, he said, Hermosa will end this school year with a surplus of $500,000 after expenditures of $2.5 million.

But that surplus will be used up in the next two or three years, Ryckman said, “so we’ll have to start introducing some frugality into our planning.”

Ryckman, who took a leave of absence from the Manhattan Beach system to help guide Hermosa through its transition period, said the Hermosa district’s coffers could be filled again through the sale of more surplus property. But strong anti-growth sentiments in the severely crowded community make such sales unlikely in the foreseeable future, he acknowledged.

Redondo’s elementary school population has plunged from a high of 9,700 at the end of the 1960s, but with 3,700 students on 10 campuses this year, the district still has by far the largest primary system among the three that feed into South Bay Union.

Business manager Beverly Rohrer said Redondo has been “teetering on the line” between slight declines and tiny increases, but district planners expect an overall rise in enrollment to the 4,200 level in the next several years.

“From what we can see now, it’s unlikely that we’ll ever go higher than that,” she said. “Only about 20% to 25% of the households have kids in school, and that’s not expected to change.”

Many of the rest of the households, she said, are made up of “empty nesters”--parents whose children have grown up and moved away--and singles who can afford to live in a beach city.

Others have observed that some Yuppies, when they eventually marry, have to give up their expensive, but small, beach quarters and look elsewhere for affordable family housing.

Rohrer said Redondo’s $10.5-million budget is enough to maintain basic programs, but allows little room for extras such as band music and fine arts. However, Redondo has expanded its day care program, which enables more working parents to enroll their children in the district’s regular schools, she said.

Manhattan Supt. Doug Keeler said he also sees a light at the end of the enrollment tunnel, but it may take his 2,200-student district longer to reach it. “Our enrollment has stabilized,” he said, “but our financial prospects are not terribly positive right now. The fact is that funding for districts like ours is woefully inadequate.

“We are holding to our basic program and doing everything we can to keep the funding cuts as far away from the classroom as possible. But over the past five or six years, we’ve been forced to eliminate virtually all of the enrichment programs that our youngsters should have.”

Keeler said the Manhattan district faces a $500,000 deficit in its current $8-million budget, a shortfall that will be covered by dipping into a $3.6-million capital fund. To do that, the district has obtained an exemption from a state law that otherwise bans school districts from using its capital for operating expenses.

Manhattan, which closed five of its 10 campuses as enrollment dropped over the years from a high of 4,000 in the 1960s, hopes to bolster its financial position by selling more surplus property to developers. Bids will be opened June 1 on the Manhattan Heights School, and the district would like to sell pieces of other properties.

However, as in other coastal communities, opposition to more development appears certain to limit what the Manhattan district can do with its real estate.

In recent months, a parents’ group called Citizens Acting Together for Community Harmony (CATCH) has been lobbying for more local support for the school system.

SCHOOL ENROLLMENTS

School District Peak Low enrollment enrollment (1960s) (today) South Bay Union High 8,000 3,640 Redondo Beach 9,700 3,700 Manhattan Beach 4,000 2,200 Hermosa Beach 2,150 665