LAUSD to visit EPIA meeting tomorrow

At tomorrow’s Echo Park Improvement Association (EPIA) Neighborhood Issues Committee meeting, a representative from the LAUSD will attend to discuss the future of CRES#14, a new school being built near Alvarado and Sunset Blvd.

A rep failed to show at the last EPIA meeting, prompting a re-scheduling of the meeting, and tomorrow (Wednesday, October 20), LAUSD administrator Chieko Rupp will be joining the conversation to hear from Echo Park residents about the project.

Residents, parents, and future parents should attend this meeting to learn about CRES#14, and to let the LAUSD know that its plan to make the school a K-8 “Choices” school needs to involve community outreach. Residents at the last EPIA meeting were disappointed to learn of the K-8 plans, worried that yet another elementary school would hurt existing Echo Park elementary schools with already dwindling enrollment.

In addition, it doesn’t sound like the new school will in fact serve the community at large, but will be pulling from other neighborhoods where children will have to travel longer distances for school.

Community members came to a consensus that the school should be a grade 7-8 school, should be open to Echo Park children, and should perhaps focus on a specific purpose, such as arts or language arts.

A little back story to the school site:

  • The two blocks the school is being built was once home to more than 50 houses. Construction started in December 2008.
  • The 875-seat campus, $68 million school was suppose to alleviate overcrowding in neighboring public schools. It’s now common knowledge that enrollment in public schools has been dwindling for quite some time now.
  • The LAUSD lost a long legal battle over the site, but found a way to build anyways.

Even if you don’t have children now, but see yourself living in Echo Park for quite some time, now is your time to get involved!

Echo Park Improvement Association Neighborhood Committee meeting

Wednesday, October 20, 2010 at 7:00 pm
Williams Hall, Barlow Hospital
Special Guest: Chieko Rupp, LAUSD

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