Students must stay within local district

GLENDALE — About 5,000 students attending classes outside their home school districts will now be forced to enroll in their local schools after the state’s District of Choice law expired Wednesday.

Republican Sen. Bob Huff had joined with Democratic Sen. Gloria Romero to promote a bill that would have indefinitely extended the 16-year-old law, but a legislative committee derailed the plan Tuesday.

The District of Choice law allows boards of education to open their school districts to any student who wishes to enroll in classes there, regardless of where they live or what academic performance they may have had. Districts of Choice could set limits on the amount of students they would allow to enter their schools, but were required to accept them on a lottery basis to avoid “cherry picking” only the most talented applicants, Huff said.

Senate Bill 680 was a bipartisan effort to extend that law and allow participating students to continue attending schools of their preference, but failed to move toward final approval on the Assembly floor, Huff said.

“It will, in effect, throw 5,000 students across the state into purgatory,” he said. “They have to go back to their districts of residence.”

The state Senate previously approved the bill, 37 to 0, as did the Assembly Committee on Education, by a vote of 6 to 1, but the Assembly Committee on Appropriations abruptly killed the measure by a vote of 11 to 5 Tuesday after what senators described as a confrontational hearing.

Local districts, which had not declared themselves as Districts of Choice, have opposed the law because it has created regional competition for students, officials said.

“It’s caused a lot of conflicts between those districts and a lot of ill will between those [districts] because it seems that the districts, in essence, are recruiting students from other districts,” said Tom Steele, director of student services for the Burbank Unified School District.

Glendale Unified School District, through its attractive language and technical programs, has drawn out-of-district students through the issuance of inter-district permits. More students and higher attendance means more state funding.

But some on Glendale Unified’s Board of Education have been publicly opposed to the District of Choice rule.