BREA : Board Seeks to End Ethnic Imbalance

While enrollment in most schools in the Brea-Olinda Unified School District has grown each year, at Laurel School it has barely changed over the past four years.

The reason, PTA members and school officials say, is so-called white flight. Many Anglo parents are sending their children elsewhere because more than half of Laurel’s 285 students are Latino, officials say.

“Because of the ethnic imbalance, Laurel is perceived as the least desirable school in the district and has suffered accordingly,” said PTA President Margie McMillan in a recent letter to the school board.

The problem is exacerbated by a district policy that allows parents to choose which school to send their children. The result is “ethnic imbalance,” McMillan said.

To solve the problem, McMillan said, the district’s Board of Trustees must change attendance boundaries so that more Anglo children will go to Laurel School.

District records show, however, that Laurel’s enrollment may increase without changing the boundaries if children living within the school’s attendance area go there instead of other schools.

During the current school year, 71 students, or nearly a quarter of Laurel’s student population, enrolled at other elementary schools.

“We have adopted open enrollment, a choice kind of program,” said district Supt. Edgar Seal. “As long as space is available, students can transfer.”

However, Todd Spitzer, a member of the school board, said the district’s enrollment policy is part of the problem.

“We are aware that some Anglo families are using the policy to leave Laurel School,” he said. He added that the district is finding ways to increase Laurel’s enrollment without changing school boundaries, which can become politically risky for the school board.

Laurel School Principal Pat Ahern said enrollment has not changed much in the last four years.

In the 1988-89 and 1989-90 school years, 270 students were enrolled in kindergarten through sixth grade at Laurel. Last year, there were 300 students. But enrollment dropped this year to 285.

Laurel is second to Olinda Elementary, which has 208 students, with the lowest enrollment among the district’s six elementary schools.

“I don’t think people realize how good an education their children can get at Laurel,” Ahern said. She said with 55% of the students being Latino, there are extensive English-as-a-second-language programs.

McMillan, who has sent her three children to Laurel, including a son who is now in sixth grade, said that she is happy with the quality of teaching at Laurel.

But she said that because of the “socioeconomic mix,” few parents participate in PTA activities. While other district schools make as much as $20,000 in PTA fund-raisers, the average at Laurel is $3,000. That means less funds for school programs, she said.

Parents who send their children to other schools said Latino children get more attention at Laurel.

“I’d leave the district first, rather than send my children to Laurel,” said Cathy Becher, whose four children go to Fanning Elementary School, about two miles away from their home, which is close to Laurel School.

Her oldest son, now in sixth grade, started kindergarten at Laurel but lasted only two weeks, she said.

“I saw that the teachers were paying more attention to the Hispanic kids, and I said, ‘That’s it, we’re leaving,’ ” Becher said.

Becher said her reason for transferring her children was not racially motivated. “I don’t think they will get quality education at Laurel,” Becher said.