ENROLLMENT DECLINE BAD NEWS FOR LAUSD.

Byline: Lisa M. Sodders Staff Writer

For the first time in a decade, enrollment in the Los Angeles Unified School District has declined - surprising officials Friday who expected 10,000 more students.

Enrollment is only 811 below last year, but it leaves a hole in the budget because officials had expected to receive $46 million in state funding if their projected increase had been accurate.

Despite the decline, Supt. Roy Romer said the district still needs the proposed $3.8 billion school-construction bond it plans to present to voters March 2. It would be the third LAUSD bond issue in seven years, totaling more than $9 billion in local property-tax hikes.

Even with 10,000 fewer students than anticipated, the district is 83,000 seats short, and the bond will provide money for only 39,000 seats, he said.

``We're terribly overcrowded,'' Romer said. ``We need the bond regardless of this downturn because the downturn may turn up substantially as we improve the schools and improve our retention rate.''

District officials reported a few weeks ago that they probably had overestimated enrollment by 2,000 to 10,000 when making their projections before school began this year.

Total enrollment, including charter schools, is 746,020 compared with an estimated 756,600, which would have been a record for the district. Instead, the district saw a net decline in enrollment of 811 students, the first reduction in 10 years.

The district receives $4,690 in per-pupil funding from the state. Independent charter schools, which have about 30,000 students, get that funding directly from the state.

Romer said the district needed to do more research to find out why the estimates were so far off and whether it's a permanent trend or a temporary ``blip.''

Still, Romer blamed the exodus on ``the economic downturn that we've had in L.A. that has caused families to leave and seek a job outside the city, coupled with the high cost of housing.''

Romer said the district would be able to save $20 million of the $46 million shortfall by reassigning 175 teachers, including 46 in Local Districts A, B and C in the San Fernando Valley. Most of those teachers will be sent to schools that had openings.

Although teachers understand and accept the district's decision, they say it will have an effect on students.

``People really don't know how traumatic it is (for students) after five or six weeks to have their teacher taken away and to be added to another teacher,'' said John Perez, union president of United Teachers Los Angeles.

He noted that the LAUSD wasn't the only district in the state to underestimate the drop in enrollment, but he said better demographic work might have helped achieve a more accurate picture, particularly given the state's economic woes and the high cost of living in Los Angeles.

The biggest drop occurred at the elementary-school level, with 3,262 fewer pupils than last year, said Lorenzo Tyner, the LAUSD's budget director. But secondary schools had a gain of 2,397 students, compared with last year.

Lisa M. Sodders, [phone]

lisa.sodders(at)dailynews.com

CAPTION(S):

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Chart:

ENROLLMENT DECLINES

Source: LAUSD

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