Students Cast Their Lots on Transfer Hopes

Clutching a piece of paper bearing the number 839, Maria Roque of Pacoima grew increasingly tense as she waited Monday for a lottery at Granada Hills High School to determine whether her daughter would get one of the school’s 200 open enrollment seats.

But 25 minutes into the random selection, Roque held her breath as the final ticket guaranteeing a seat was announced--No. 765--then quickly stepped outside the admissions office, tears welling in her eyes.

She, and her daughter, had lost the gamble.

Similar emotional scenes were played at dozens of campuses throughout the Los Angeles Unified School District Monday in the second year of open enrollment, a program that lets parents pick their children’s school. At the most popular campuses, where the number of applicants exceeded available seats, the winners were selected by lottery.

District officials said they kept no count of schools that conducted lotteries. However, about 21,000 seats, including 9,754 at 120 schools in the San Fernando Valley, were open. Despite the need for lotteries at the most popular schools, however, only about half of the district’s open seats are expected to be filled.

Last year, 9,810 students, including several hundred from private schools, switched to campuses throughout the district in the first year of open enrollment. The largest number of openings this year are at Taft High School in Woodland Hills, which received about 350 applications for 800 seats, so no lottery is needed.

Although the deadline to enter the lotteries was June 9, parents can still apply to schools where the allotted number of open seats have not been filled. The deadline to enroll in year-round schools is July 14. Enrollment will remain open until Sept. 22 at schools with a traditional 10-month calendar, district officials said.

In addition, children whose names ended up on waiting lists after the lotteries Monday may still have a chance for an open seat at the desired school, district and school officials said, since many lottery-winners fail to enroll because they applied to several different schools.

At Granada Hills High, for example, the distraught Roque was comforted by a school official who said that her daughter’s 37th place on a waiting list of 193 means she still has a good chance of qualifying.

“Oh, I hope so,” Roque said, explaining that she fears San Fernando High School, where her 14-year-old daughter Mayra is scheduled to begin classes in the fall, is “not safe.” She said she had moved her daughter to Holmes Middle School in Northridge last year because she did not like the gang activity at her neighborhood middle school in San Fernando, even though the two oldest of her five children had attended the local schools.

The wait for lottery results at Granada Hills High was a lot easier for Boris Zingerman of Granada Hills, whose son’s number was the 23rd to be pulled, guaranteeing Steven Zingerman, 14, a place at the campus. The elder Zingerman, a Jew who emigrated from Russia eight years ago in search of religious freedom, said he perceives greater violence problems at his son’s designated school, Kennedy High.

Owner of a pawnshop in East Los Angeles, Zingerman said he considered sending his son and 6-year-old daughter to private schools, but found the expense prohibitive. One of only half a dozen parents who attended the drawing, Zingerman squeezed the magic number in his fist as it was called and said, “Yes!”

At Nobel Middle School in Northridge, where 229 children applied for 50 openings, parents who telephoned or dropped by the school Monday were told that they would have to wait to learn the results by mail. The notifications were to be sent today.

Lana Erwin of Chatsworth said she entered her 11-year-old daughter Holly’s application on the first day of open enrollment, May 8. She said that although Holly has attended private schools since age 3, the continued tuition cost “is economically not feasible.”

Erwin said she was alarmed by reports of guns and knives confiscated from students at the school in her Chatsworth neighborhood, Lawrence Middle School.

Holly’s name was not among the first 50 selected Monday, but Erwin said she plans “to be persistent and really try” to get her daughter into Nobel. She has just completed requirements for a teaching credential and on Monday applied for a position at Nobel, hoping that might give her an edge in enrolling her daughter.

“Holly’s been protected all her life,” Erwin said. “These are the middle school years. Oh, my gosh.”