HBCSD Corruption

The Correct Information:

(1)        Decision Insite’s pre-pandemic November 2018 Enrollment Forecast report also predicted that HBCSD enrollment would drop to 1,200 students by 2028.    A loss of approximately 272 students from HBCSD’s high enrollment in September 2014.   The last time HBCSD enrollment had been below 1,200 students was in 2008.   Did it still make sense for the district to spend $59M of taxpayer money to build a brand-new 510 student campus at North School and rebuild and greatly expand View School when there was a prediction of ongoing future decreases in enrollment?  It did not make sense to build a brand-new campus at North School unless HBCSD could show large, unanticipated spikes in enrollment in the past; a scenario that was not true.

NOTE: HBCSD never needed to build a brand-new campus for 510 students.

By 2023, HBCSD school capacity would reach 1,902 students. Enrollment in 2023 was only 1,165 Hermosa students and 174 students attending HBCSD on interdistrict permits for a total of 1,339 students. In 2023 there is 563 extra student capacity at HBCSD that is under-used or unused. 563 seats divided by 24 students per classroom = 23 underused or unused classrooms.

All State projections showed a continual decline in the population of Hermosa Beach, despite taxpayers paying $59M for a brand new unneeded campus at North School (aka Vista School).

See:

Lie #19: Superintendent Pat Escalante and school board members claiming that HBCSD was over capacity by 500 students prior to the District's 2016 $59M bond vote.

Lie #24: The District's demographic report given to the Facility Planning and Advisory Committee members in January 2013 made no sense and was later proved to be substantially wrong.

Lie #25: The District's demographic projections supplied by Decision Insite for HBCSD seemingly ignored evidence of declining K-12 enrollment from the California Department of Finance Demographics Unit and the Los Angeles Unified School District. 

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.

Lie #45: HBCSD SPUN information and omitted relevant information regarding the Interim School Housing Measures the district took from 2014 to 2016 in Chapter 7, page 7-4 of the Environmental Impact Report for the reconstruction of North School:

(2)         Actual HBCSD enrollment dropped to approximately 1,200 students in 2021 and 2022.  Seven years ahead of schedule according to DI consultant’s projections.  However, HBCSD was able to entice 58 students in 2021 and 82 students in 2022 from other school districts to attend Hermosa schools, thus increasing enrollment through recruiting students from other school districts to attend HBCSD schools on interdistrict permits.  

A.       HBCSD poaching students from other school districts in order to prop up its own enrollment numbers will end up negatively impacting the other school district’s funding.   CDE funding is based on the number of students attending schools in that district.  School districts whose students attend HBCSD on interdistrict permits lose funding for their own, often less advantaged school districts, thus further disadvantaging the remaining students.

B.       Poaching students from other school districts exacerbates the current county-wide trend of declining enrollment for most school districts.

C.       HBCSD poaching students from other school districts in order to prop up its own enrollment numbers also creates extra unnecessary pollution and traffic by having 82 students (in 2022-2023) who reside outside of Hermosa Beach drive back and forth to Hermosa schools twice a day, Monday through Friday.

(3)         HBCSD would also lose at least $140,000/year from income by renting North School out to Children’s Journey and an unknown amount of income from South Bay Adult School, etc.  HBCSD asked Children’s Journey to vacate the North School property in summer 2017.  By 2021, HBCSD has lost almost half a million dollars by not leasing North School.

A.       If enrollment dropped, HBCSD would not need to use North School.  By 2021, HBCSD enrollment had dropped by 270 students.

B.       A renovated North School would have been an affordable lease option for a private school.  The lease for a 510 student, brand-new campus in a somewhat inaccessible location would presumably price out most private school takers.