Children 4 and 5 Scramble for Place in Private Schools

For all the anxiety of the last few months, Alice Gordezky’s daughter might as well have applied to an Ivy League college.

There were enigmatic tests, endless interviews and probing essay questions. Tuition could have bought a new car. And the odds of getting in, well, they made Yale look like a breeze.

When the letter--a thick one, indicating acceptance--arrived in last Saturday’s mail, Gordezky screamed with joy. Five-year-old Rachel had won a spot in an exclusive North Hollywood kindergarten.

“The whole experience was amazingly stressful . . . ludicrous . . . and mind-boggling,” said Gordezky, 37, a graphic artist from Van Nuys. “I guess I was one of the lucky ones.”

Welcome to the world of private education in Los Angeles. But don’t expect to get in. Dissatisfaction with conditions at public schools and the specter of year-round classes have unleashed a stampede of youngsters that few private schools can accommodate.

Last week, dozens of elite schools across the county--from Carlthorpe in Santa Monica to Buckley in Sherman Oaks to John Thomas Dye in Bel-Air--mailed out acceptance and rejection letters for next fall, then promptly closed for a two-week vacation. Of the thousands of children who applied, somewhere between 75% to 95% were wished better luck next time.

“I started to cry,” said an Encino mother, who asked not to be identified because her 5-year-old son is still on a waiting list at one school. “This was really the first rejection of his young life.”

Although this process has been a spring rite for years at private schools, administrators say the crunch to get into classes this fall--even at prices that range from $5,000 to $8,000 a year--has never been more intense.

At Polytechnic School in Pasadena, for instance, no new students were accepted for the second, third and fifth grades, despite more than 40 applications for each class. The competition is just as fierce at the high school level. At Oakwood School in North Hollywood, applications for some classes increased by as much as 250% over last year.

“It is a painful time of year,” said Mimi Baer, executive director of the California Assn. of Independent Schools, which represents 50 private schools in the Los Angeles area serving about 60,000 students. The organization only admits schools that have been in existence at least six years and have independent boards of directors, which excludes most religious schools.

“I think all of us really deplore the situation,” she said. “We’re having to say ‘no’ to a lot of wonderful families.”

Unlike many Eastern schools, however, where successive generations of youngsters often attend their family’s alma mater, headmasters at private schools here say they are attracting mostly first-time students.

They come from families who believe fervently in public education--who, in fact, say they would prefer that their children attend a neighborhood school--but feel that deteriorating conditions there have left them no alternative.

“Many come with a sense of resignation and, in some cases, desperation,” said Paul Cummins, headmaster of Crossroads School in Santa Monica. “They really wish their neighborhood schools were doing the job. But we, as a society, have dumped so many problems on the public schools . . . that these families just give up.”

Nowhere is the desperation of parents more magnified than at the kindergarten level.

Because most students don’t leave once they are accepted, kindergarten is usually the only realistic shot a family has at getting into the private school of its choice. That is, if 175 children vying for 10 spots seems realistic.

“Families come to me in a total panic,” said Harriett Bay, a West Los Angeles consultant, who at $600 a pop, does a thriving business helping match children with private schools. “I work with them and really try to calm them down . . . but I can’t guarantee placement.”

Indeed, there’s no such thing as a sure thing, given that admissions directors are trying to assess the academic potential of kids only a few years removed from diapers. Besides, their methods for separating the cream of 4-year-olds from the rest of the crop vary wildly.

At Mirman School for Gifted Children in Bel-Air, pupils must possess an IQ of at least 145--well above average and bordering on genius--just to be considered.

Most other schools try to judge development and verbal skills by having a teacher tell a story, then asking the child to recall the sequence of events. Many rely heavily on nursery school evaluations.

Some refuse to meet the children one-on-one, but spend considerable time interviewing the parents. And a few engage the youngsters in social activities, such as sharing graham crackers and milk, to see how well they interact with their peers.

“It’s utterly crazy,” said Aliza Guren, 35, of Brentwood, whose 4-year-old son will begin kindergarten at a private school this fall. Guren, a graduate of Harvard Law School, helps the university interview prospective students.

“At least there you have scores, boards, grades and records,” she said. “But what does a 4-year-old have? These are little kids.”

Many parents take a more cynical approach. They prep their children for the interviews and train them for the tests. Some families have found that hefty financial contributions, apart from tuition, increase their chances. Others say it’s not who your child is, but who you know.

“There was so much politics going on, your name, your income, your position, your connections,” said one Santa Monica woman, a former actress, whose 4-year-old daughter is on a waiting list. “I tried to be realistic, because I felt like we were just kind of mid-range on all those points.”

Even administrators concede the process is imperfect.

“The report on my own daughter when she was 4 was that her hand-eye coordination wasn’t too good, as reflected by her use of the scissors,” said Cummins, the Crossroads headmaster. “Now, she’s a violinist.”

But faced with a staggering number of applications and committed to maintaining small classes, most private schools say they know of no other way to make their cuts.

Nor are they laughing all the way to the bank. Administrators say they are pleased to find parents interested in their schools, but they are distressed that the quality of education in public districts has sent so many desperate families their way.

“A lot of these are really nice people looking at their little guy or girl and wondering what’s the best they can do for them,” said Mike Babcock, Polytechnic’s headmaster. “We do our best to explain that it’s a bit of a crap shoot. But there’s no question that this is a time of anxiety and I really regret it. When your child is 3 or 4 or 5, you shouldn’t have to worry about their schooling.”

In the Los Angeles Unified School District, about 4,000 of the district’s 610,000 students left to attend private schools last year. To some extent, officials concede, it is a welcome relief from overcrowded conditions.

But Paul Possemato, associate superintendent for instruction, says he fears that some parents may be leaving the district for the wrong reasons.

“This society is a complex and varied one. It is diverse and dynamic,” Possemato said. “Because of that, a child must learn to grow and mature in an environment that’s real. Public schools are where reality exists.

“My advice to parents is always the same,” he said. “Don’t run from public education because you think you’re going to save your child. You’re just going to force your child to run from real-life issues.”

For many parents, however, that philosophy is far from realistic.

“The bottom line for every parent is you have to do what is best for your children,” said Abbie Rich, a PTA mom in Tarzana, whose son, 10, and daughter, 6, will enter a private school in the fall.

Her litany of complaints about the public school system is familiar: overcrowding, lack of resources, discipline problems in class, too few teachers capable of helping non-English-speaking students and eventual year-round classes.

Although Rich said she worked hard at her local elementary school, serving as a Spanish-speaking classroom volunteer and helping to raise money for computers and books, she began to see the problems as bigger than what a few concerned parents could accomplish.

“Private school should be an option,” said Rich, 41, a free-lance television writer. “It shouldn’t have to be a necessity. That’s what’s absurd.”