Lie 27 | Proof of The Lie | Hermosa Beach, CA

Lie #27

Less than six months after the District won it's $59M Measure S bond vote, HBCSD enrollment consultants changed their enrollment projections from future large increases in enrollment to one of markedly lower overall enrollment at HBCSD.

Proof of the lie:

(1) Voters used Decision Insite May 2015 enrollment projections of a significant INCREASE in enrollment to inform their vote. School board members did not provide an updated enrollment report before the June 2016 $59M bond vote.

(2) Only Six months after the district’s $59M facilities bond passed in June 2016, Decision Insite’s changed their May 2015 Enrollment Projections from 1,543 students in 2019 to that of only 1,234 students in 2019. DI changed their enrollment prediction to a 309 student DECLINE in HBCSD by September 2019 from the May 2015 enrollment projections. See Decision Insite enrollment report 5 Year Projections for May 2015 and November 2016.

(3) One year after Decision Insite’s November 2016 projected a significant decrease in K-8th grade enrollment at HBCSD, the Easy Reader addressed the issue in an article entitled Study projects enrollment decline for school district in coming years, on December 22, 2017.

In the article Decision Insite senior vice president Dean Waldfogel was quoted as saying that he was aware of only one [school] district in the [entire] State [of California] forecasted to have enrollment gains in the coming years. Did all of California have a sudden inexplicable drop in enrollment after HBCSD’s June 2016 facilities bond passed? If Dean Waldfogel was aware of only one school district forecasted to have enrollment gains in the coming years, how and why did Decision Insite predict that enrollment was rising in Hermosa Beach in its May 2015 Enrollment Report?

(4) DI’s pre-pandemic November 2018 enrollment projections predicted 98 less students at HBCSD by 2023 on top of already declining enrollment since the district’s $59M dollar facilities bond passed in June 2016.

(5) DI’s November 2018 5-Year Projections were labeled “Conservative 5 Year Projection” alluding to even lower enrollment totals in the future. In fact the pre-pandemic November 2018 District-wide Projection showed enrollment at approximately 1,200 students by 2028.

(6) HBCSD actual enrollment in 2021 and 2022 was 1,200 Hermosa students (not including interdistrict permitted students). The drop in enrollment occurred seven years earlier than had been predicted by DI in November 2018. The 2021 and 2022 enrollment was a decrease of 272 students from the district’s high enrollment in September 2014 of 1,472 students, even as HBCSD had spent $29M of taxpayer funds to add at least 510 more student capacity by

rebuilding North School.

(7) Despite DI’s revised projections of declining enrollment, and LAUSD and the CA Dept of Finance predictions of future significant decreases in K-12 population, school board members continued with their plans to build a brand new, and now unneeded 510 student campus at North School (aka Vista School).

1. The cost to tear down and build new at North School was

estimated to be $29M.

2. The estimated cost to renovate North School and add an

administration/classroom building was $6.2M, one-third

the cost of rebuilding a brand-new campus.

(8) SAMPLE OF RECENT ARTICLES WARNING OF DECLINING K-12 POPULATION:

1. 5 ways Los Angeles County’s population is changing, by

Brenda Gazzar, Daily News, published March 30, 2015,

updated August 28, 2017. Exhibit DI-31

2. The Number of Children in L.A. is Shrinking – Which

Could Be a Disaster, by Hillel Aron, LA Weekly,

published March 2, 2017.