By Brian Park
The Capistrano Unified School District Board of Trustees on Monday, January 7, unanimously voted to remove seven of its schools from the Open Enrollment Act list.
The Open Enrollment Act, a 2010 state law, requires the State Superintendent to maintain a list of California’s 1,000 “low achieving” schools, based on Academic Performance Index scores. Students attending those schools have the right to transfer out of their districts, but districts are also encouraged to provide inter-district transfer options.
The law also requires no district to have more than 10 percent of its schools on the list. The schools to be removed from the list are Clarence Lobo, Crown Valley, Kinoshita, Marblehead, R.H. Dana, San Juan and Viejo.
Trustee Anna Bryson said the law inaccurately portrays smaller, high-performing districts like CUSD, whose lower-scoring schools still outperform others in larger districts.
“It makes good districts like Capistrano victims,” Bryson said. “This is a skewed study and it really is unfortunate.”
