Beverly Hills schools move to cut outside pupils
BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. -- Threats on Facebook, name-calling, security guard escorts - tempers are running high around schools these days in this normally sedate enclave of ostentatious wealth.
The reason: The Beverly Hills school board is preparing to boot out 10 percent of its students as it ends a decades-old practice of allowing out-of-district pupils to attend city schools on "opportunity permits."
The move has upset many so-called permit parents - mostly middle-class families living in the tonier areas of Los Angeles who are loath to send their children to the beleaguered Los Angeles Unified School District, where more than a quarter of high-schoolers drop out.
"Every family on permit is outraged," said Simy Levy, a Los Angeles resident whose two daughters attend school in Beverly Hills. "It's incredibly unfair.