So Many Students, So Few Openings

It was one grandmother’s dying wish: Could her grandson please, please be admitted into Francisco Bravo Medical Magnet High School?

An eager 13-year-old applying to the same East Los Angeles school showed up with a portfolio stuffed with evidence of his life achievements. Parents who had set their sights on another magnet even offered a principal a $30,000 bribe.

But coordinators in the Los Angeles Unified School District’s magnet schools say they tell all desperate parents--and grandparents--the same thing: Get in line; there’s no special treatment.

On Friday, the application deadline for the district’s 155 magnet programs, many parents rushed to fill out last-minute paperwork and frantically finished school tours. Others weighed fallback plans, just in case their children got stuck on waiting lists.

“This week I had 30 parents per tour,” said Rhona Feldman, magnet coordinator for Valley Alternative Magnet School. “It was like an avalanche of parents. It was a total riot. They’re hysterical about the deadlines. They’re all running around. They’re going through major stress.”

Dennis Pilien, Bravo’s magnet coordinator said: “Some people are pushy. . . . Sometimes they bring food, and family members with sad eyes.”

But there will be even more sad eyes when letters are sent out in April, notifying parents that their children were not selected for admission.

That will be the fate of most of the 50,000 to 70,000 students who apply for magnet programs this year, because there are only 15,000 available slots.

The application process is frustratingly complex for many parents but is designed to be fair, district officials say. First, students are selected in a lottery, based on the number of slots available per magnet school. But not everyone who is chosen accepts, so slots of those who don’t accept go to applicants who were put on the waiting lists.

Priority goes to students on the waiting lists who have the most points. These go to students who are already enrolled in magnet programs, are in schools where minority students predominate, are in overcrowded facilities or already have siblings at the desired magnet campuses. More points are added for each year a student is on a waiting list.

Still, many parents try to persuade schools to bend the rules--to no avail, Pilien said.

Some bring bottles of wine and food. Some present letters of recommendation from school counselors and teachers. And they all insist their children are geniuses, he said.

“One kid brought a portfolio with all kinds of awards. He had a great GPA. He was an amazing kid,” Pilien said. “But I can’t do anything. I have to follow the rules.”

When all else fails, a desperate few turn to deception: lying about where they live or what ethnic group they belong to.

Once, when a teacher drove past the reported address of an applicant’s family, it turned out to be an abandoned store, Pilien said.

Some parents try to manipulate the point system. For example, at Bravo, which accepts only prospective ninth-graders, some parents will apply when children are in seventh grade, hoping to be awarded waiting-list points so the youngsters can get in later. That is against the rules, and parents often get caught.

In the case of magnet schools that start as early as kindergarten--such as Valley Alternative--parents frequently apply for admission knowing that their children will not be accepted, but do it anyway to gain the points for the next year.

In an extreme example of parental desperation, one couple offered a Valley Alternative School principal a $30,000 “donation” to admit their child, Feldman said. The offer was turned down, he said.

Joy Folse’s 13-year-old son, Turhan, who attends Palms Middle School, has dutifully followed the rules and applied for magnet schools four years in a row. She hopes this year is the last.

“You get points for continuing to apply, so you hope at some point that is going to mean something,” she said. “But if that doesn’t mean something until he’s a senior, then what?”

Folse’s son is biracial--his mother is white and father is African American and Native American. Friends have told her to use that as an advantage on applications.

“I’ve used African American, and I’ve used white,” she said. “Neither one seemed to make a difference.”

In fact, ethnicity is a factor in magnet school placement because most magnets must strive for targets of at least 30% white students. White students--who constitute 10% of the district’s enrollment--are in greater demand than minorities at most Los Angeles campuses.

As conceived 20 years ago, magnet schools were intended to improve integration. The idea was to attract a diverse student body by offering specialized programs in areas such as math and science, art, language and the humanities.

Still, parents often lose sight of the integration purposes. For most, the primary concern is to provide their children with the best education.

For those who missed Friday’s deadline, there is a late application deadline of Feb. 23. But Pilien said students who submit late applications are usually put on waiting lists.

On Thursday, the day before the deadline, Julie Fluster and her daughter, Danielle Fluster, 13, had just started touring schools.

Danielle, who only recently decided she wants to be a doctor, narrowed her first choice down to Bravo for its acclaimed medical magnet program.

Though she is by no means certain of a slot, she is hoping against hope for one.

“I really like [Bravo] because it has connections to different hospitals and colleges and everything, so you can really get training here. I really want to get into this school.”