ERNC Backs Dahlia Heights’ Effort to Retain Title 1 Funds

The voted unanimously Tuesday night to urge the LAUSD Board of Education to reconsider its recent decision to eliminate nine academic assistance programs that help the neediest students at in such activities as after-school tutoring and youth development through athletics and arts.

Dahlia Heights is among 23 public schools, including some flagship ones, that learned in December about the LAUSD board’s vote—without any warning—to raise the threshold by which schools receive Title 1 funds from 40 percent to 50 percent of students who qualify for free or discounted lunch.

$80,000 'Gouge'

Because 48.5 percent students qualify for Title 1 assistance at Dahlia Heights, PTA President Katy Hickman and PTA Advocacy Committee Chair Janet Borrus told the ERNC, their school would lose more than $80,000 in funding for a range of intervention programs that, so far, appear to have done a remarkable job of bridging Dahlia’s academic achievement gap between high-income and low-income students.

“We did very well at closing the gap, so we shouldn’t be crippled but be replicated,” said Borrus, adding that the LAUSD cut 75 percent of elementary school arts funding in 2011—and the remaining 25 percent will be axed this year.

(Some 9,000 students in 23 schools will feel the "gouge" of the LAUSD's impending elimination of programs under Title 1, Borrus told Patch. She added that the LAUSD, faced with reduced Title 1 funding from the federal government, has said that the cuts are necessary to keep similar programs alive in lower-income schools, although a cost-benefit analysis of the LAUSD’s own data by James Barrie, a rocket scientist who serves on the board of the Friends Of Palms Middle School, shows that the intervention programs may not be working as well in those schools.)

The Dahlia Heights PTA brought the issue to the attention of during his State of the Town address on February 1, and his office has since responded that Huizar will be taking the matter up with the LAUSD board, adding that the school is also in touch with U.S. Congress Member Xavier Becerra’s office.

Bike Path, Dog Park, Redistricting

Among other matters that the ERNC board voted on at its monthly meeting—held at Eagle Rock City Hall because the usual venue at the was not available—was a proposed bike path at the south end of Yosemite Park, which has long been a magnet for graffiti, public drinking and occasional outbreaks of violence.

Linking the park’s spacious and underused amphitheater to the outskirts of , the bike path would also help reduce crime and a range of undesirable activities in the area, a favored spot among teenagers for making out, said ERNC Public Safety Director Oren Bitan.

But Board member Carolee Mayne, who lives on Escarpa Drive, near Oxy, said the proposed bike path is in “such a dangerous place” that “I don’t even walk down there with my dog.” She added: “And I wouldn’t go there just because there’s a bike path.”

Except for Mayne, all the other 12 Board members present voted in support of further exploring the idea of a bike path.

On a related note, ERNC President Michael Larsen informed the Board that the Department of Recreation and Parks has shot down a fairly popular idea among community members—that a dog park be built on the south end of Yosemite Park.

“The goal is to get people back there and I’ve explored [the idea of] a dog park” with Recreation and Parks officials, but “their answer pretty much is ‘no,’” Larsen said. He added: “They don’t like dog parks” because of the noise and smells and a host of other problems that appear to tax the organization’s resources.

The ERNC Board meeting ended with a brief summary of the highlights of a public input forum on the 2012 Redistricting of Los Angeles that was held Monday night at .

The Board voted unanimously to approve the Redistricting Commission’s latest draft maps—to the extent that they continue to keep Eagle Rock geopolitically intact and within CD 14.

Correction: The initial version of this article incorrectly stated in the fifth paragraph that it was the LAUSD that conducted a cost-benefit analysis of its own data on Title 1 programs. The analysis was in fact done by James Barrie, a member on the board of the Friends Of Palms Middle School.