Santa Clarita / Antelope Valley : County Relents on Districts’ Battle Over 9th-Graders

Ninth-graders will attend school in the soon-to-be-formed Acton-Agua Dulce Unified School District without a fight from the Los Angeles County Office of Education.

Up to and including this year, the school district serving the two rural communities has overseen the education of students only through the eighth grade. Last November, voters overwhelmingly approved extending the district’s authority to the 12th grade.

Trustees for the new K-12 district, who formally take over July 1, said that in the coming school year 10th- to 12th-grade students will continue attending high school in the Antelope Valley Union High School District. But they want to assume responsibility for educating ninth-graders in the fall--a decision the county Office of Education initially recommended against.

But rather than continuing to protest the district’s plans to house ninth-graders, the county has said it will focus on keeping the school district financially sound--a status it says is already questionable.

School district trustees want the ninth-graders to attend the district’s new middle school, which is only about half full.

“It’s unusual for a district to immediately unify and immediately take those children,” said Patricia Meyer of the county education office’s Financial Advisory Services.

A newly unified district typically spends at least one year preparing for high school students and sometimes as much as four years, Meyer said.

A small contingent from the Office of Education met this week with the Acton-Agua Dulce Board of Trustees to discuss the financial impact of the school district’s pending takeover of secondary education.

The county office was concerned about the district’s financial state even before the K-12 district was approved, Meyer said. The district’s financial reports showed that it would end the fiscal year on June 30 with a low reserve and low account balances, Meyer said.

Once the district said it would start serving ninth-graders, the county education office became even more alarmed about the financial condition of the three-campus, 1,600-student district, Meyer said.

Under state law, the district’s shaky financial position would allow the county to assign a fiscal adviser, a step it has so far chosen not to take, Meyer said.

“You are getting ready to make a major transition,” Calvin Hall, assistant superintendent of business for the county education office, told the new district’s board. “We’re here to help.”

Hall said the Acton-Agua Dulce district should give the Antelope Valley Union High School District the attendance-based state funds it would receive for housing those 10th- to 12th-grade students.

“We feel reasonable people can come together and reach a solution,” Hall said, noting that the county will work to bring the two school boards together after Acton-Agua Dulce trustees complained of a lack of response from the high school district.