Why We Will Never Have a AUSD

Some people are out trying to get signatures to start the process of getting a Altadena School District. Being a "Home Rule" kind of guy I'm generally for it, in spite of the hilarious misrepresentations and shenanigans of many of the folks "running" the effort today. While I'm for it, I predict it will N E V E R happen.

The signatures really are no problem and with a group of real activists would have been gathered by now. The will of the People of Altadena to vote for and run a school district isn't a problem either. What makes a Altadena School District an impossibility is all the God Damned not for profits roosting in Altadena, generally run by do gooder Board of Directors from Pasadena, San Marino and LaCanada who are dumping, oh let me be politically correct and polite: "placing" severely mentally, emotionally and physically retarded children, and children with various disabilities that make them prone to violence, in group living situations here in west Altadena. Nice of them ain't it...

Anyhow, under some very unjust and bizarre constructs of the California State Education Code, these kids education and treatments must be paid for by the school district wherein they reside. Presently the cost of providing services for the kids at Five Acres and Sycamores are costing the PUSD between $15,000 and $200,000 a year EACH. Paying for these kids is a major impediment already to the PUSD's ability to provide a quality education for the vast majority of the children in the district and even for other handicapped children who don't reside at these "not for profit" group homes.

These "Not for Profit" group homes are in the borders of the map that the present proponents accepted from LAFCO. this means that were there a Altadena Unified School District, the AUSD would have to pay for the education of all these "not for profit" group home kids. These kids are already a major strain on the PUSD budget and would simply break the back of a AUSD and make it so that a AUSD could never ever pass the fiscal study demanded under law before the issue can be voted on by Altadenans.

If you look around, you see that California School Districts without large group home facilities for emotionally, mentally and physically handicapped students have very high test scores and even lower "per pupil" costs than Districts that do. The districts that do have these facilities happen to have relatively low local land values and higher concentrations of minority and working class students. The under laying disparities in land values between rich and not rich communities tend to make for more of these kind of uses in less wealthy and minority communities. The California State law making the district where the "not for Profit" service providers are located pay the costs of the services is a supposedly innocent and fair law that structurally disadvantages huge numbers of minority and working class students. The State of California should pay directly for these kids, and until they do, educating minority and working class kids will be a cruel joke and never ending issue in California.

It will also mean that Altadenans will never control the education of their kids.