March 19, 2024

MBUSD Board approves list of impacted schools within district

By Naomi Tsuang

Online News Editor

The Manhattan Beach Unified School District Board of Trustees approved the list of impacted schools within the district at the March 1 board meeting, which includes all of the grades in the district’s five elementary schools and all three grades at the Manhattan Beach Middle School.

According to MBUSD Board President Jennifer Cochran, the term “impacted” refers to schools in the district that are filled with the maximum amount of Manhattan Beach residents and there is not likely space available for out-of-district transfer students for next school year.

“The difficulty with being impacted is that we are not able to offer the school of residence to all students,” MBUSD Special Education Assistant Superintendent Megan Atkins said. “And very rarely, but it does happen, siblings have to attend different schools.”

The California Education Code sections 41376 and 41378 state that elementary and middle school classrooms should not exceed 30 students on average. Currently, there are approximately 30 students in each MBMS classroom and elementary school classes have approximately 24 to 25 students, not including students with disabilities who mainstream in the classes for large portions of the day, Atkins said.

“The middle school and elementary schools are almost always listed as impacted,” Cochran said. “We are generally at capacity in all of our schools besides Mira Costa, [which] usually [has] space to accept Intradistrict Transfers.”

The district examined the current enrollment in each grade at each school and the likely capacity for next school year, in order to determine which schools are impacted. There is historical data that shows the amount of students that usually move in and out of the district each year, allowing the district to make accurate predictions, Cochran said.  

“[The list of impacted schools] does not negatively impact the district,” Cochran said. “It simply allows us to offer home school placements for as many of our students as possible.”

The California Department of Education requires every district in the state to submit a list of impacted schools and to publish the list in all school offices after the board’s approval, in order to notify the public of space that is available for Intradistrict Transfers, Cochran said.

“Although the word impacted sounds severe, this is really just a formality that we do every year so that the schools have on file whether they are full to capacity or have room to accept transfer students from other districts,” Cochran said.

MBUSD schools with available space can accept transfer students who do not live in the district if students apply for a permit, called an Intradistrict Transfer Request, through the use of a lottery process.

“By approving this list of impacted grades at the schools, we are stating that we feel our schools will be filled to capacity with our own residents and not likely open for transfer students,” Cochran said.

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