Officials call for plan to increase L.A. Unified enrollment
The Los Angeles Board of Education on Tuesday directed staff to develop a plan to increase district enrollment by at least 5%. The nation’s second-largest school system has shrunk rapidly in recent years because of declining birth rates, population shifts and an exodus of students to nearly 200 independently managed charter schools.
The plan may include an expansion of successful and popular magnet programs, which began as part of a voluntary integration effort. More than 20,000 students end up on waiting lists and 5,000 of these attend charter schools, private schools or public schools outside L.A. Unified, said board member Steve Zimmer.
“We have programs that families have chosen,” Zimmer said. But the school system has lacked “a strategic