School Board to Vote on Enrollment Changes with a Big Impact on Weaver

At Tonight’s Los Alamitos Unified School District Board of Education meeting, district officials will tackle the sensitive issue of enrollment and transfer policies.

A handful of proposed changes in policy could forces families with older children at to have to send their younger children to a different school in the district even though Weaver is the only school on a year-round schedule. Last month, the board approved a first reading of the policy change, giving students from within the Los Alamitos School District enrollment boundaries preference over transfer students whose older sibling already attend Weaver. The move has upset families who say they were given a promise when they enrolled their elder children at Weaver that the younger ones would be allowed to follow in their footsteps.

Weaver has no attendance boundaries. It’s enrollment policies have always differed from the rest of the school’s in the district because the school had to go outside the district to fill seats when it first opened in 1996. Historically, It was the only school in the district that gave preference to the siblings of students from outside the district over new students from within the district.

Weaver has built a reputation as one of the best schools in the county, and it’s now drawing more and more students from Seal Beach, Rossmoor and Los Alamitos. The shift has forced the district to consider changing its policy, which gives preference to the siblings of existing students.

It’s something that school district leaders have been debating for some time. Last year, heavy kindergarten enrollment forced the district to consider looking at changing the enrollment policy this year.

It’s not been an easy decision.

“It’s hard for us because we have loyalty to our siblings because their families have been such a part of building the culture of Weaver,” Principal Erin Kominisky told the board when the issue first came up last year. “I have been at this school for 15 years, and when we first started in 1996, we couldn’t get enough kids to attend. Weaver is built on inter-district transfer families.”

Tonight, the board is expected to vote on a second reading of the policy change. The board meeting is at 6:30 p.m. at the Los Alamitos Unified School District, 10293 Bloomfield Street.