Dazed About School

Managing one's way around the LA Unified School District (LAUSD) takes some doing and requires such because, as a rule, LA public schools suck. We have regular neighborhood schools, charter schools and magnet schools. Sometimes the charters or magnets are within regular schools. Getting into the magnets or charters is a bit of a lottery where you get points for, among other things, the number of times you apply and get rejected.

When the HB was kindergarten age, we applied to a local (1/2 mile away) charter school that we did want him to go to. But, he kept losing out in the lottery. So, we sent him to private school and kept acruing points, thinking that eventually we could use them when applying to a good middle or high school.

Well, last year the school accepted him. But, even though it meant we lost our points, we decided not to send him. The administrators were jerks and didn't really seem interested in us--we were just a number. Plus, he only would have been at the school for 2 years (it only goes K-5).

So, we lost our rejection points and decided to start over. This time, we applied to a school with the highest number of applications to seats. Wouldn't you fucking know it--he got accepted. So, we turned it down (it's an academically poor school) and we're back to square one.

This only really matters after next year if we try to get into one of the good middle school magnets/charters. Our out is that his current school goes through 8th grade. So, our hand isn't forced until he's ready for 9th grade. Saving the private school tuition would be nice, but not at the expense of sending him to a shitty school. Especially given CA's budget mess and how that's going to affect school spending.