The IUSD education

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Unless your children want to become fluent in the sciences (engineering, medicine) college is to some extent useless. Success in business is more often a case of "who you know" not "what you know". Transferring in later to a name brand school is easier than being accepted right off the bat. With so much pressure put on kids to get things right the first time, all the time does a great disservice to them in the long run. A long term strategic approach to many schools gives your child more options to find out what they (not the parents...) want to do first, then get into the right school that matches their own goals. Most readers may remember how things started Freshman Year at "X" career only to end up somewhere else either later as a Junior, or even post graduate.
 
sgip said:
A long term strategic approach to many schools gives your child more options to find out what they (not the parents...) want to do first, then get into the right school that matches their own goals.
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Completely agree. I tell those within my circle it’s not where you start, but where you finish in terms of college.
Unfortunately, school districts receive extra points for students taking AP classes instead of guaranteed credit at a local community college while in high school. The districts and high schools mislead their students to be graded higher by the California Dashboard, which does not benefit the student.
 
Kangen.Irvine said:
Completely agree. I tell those within my circle it’s not where you start, but where you finish in terms of college.
Unfortunately, school districts receive extra points for students taking AP classes instead of guaranteed credit at a local community college while in high school. The districts and high schools mislead their students to be graded higher by the California Dashboard, which does not benefit the student.
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sgip said:
Unless your children want to become fluent in the sciences (engineering, medicine) college is to some extent useless. Success in business is more often a case of "who you know" not "what you know". Transferring in later to a name brand school is easier than being accepted right off the bat. With so much pressure put on kids to get things right the first time, all the time does a great disservice to them in the long run. A long term strategic approach to many schools gives your child more options to find out what they (not the parents...) want to do first, then get into the right school that matches their own goals. Most readers may remember how things started Freshman Year at "X" career only to end up somewhere else either later as a Junior, or even post graduate.
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You bring up some good points here, as success is not linear in many cases. Often times kids don’t apply themselves mentally and emotionally, nor with discipline, until they find a special interest that lights their fire and curiosity to invigorate self-starting habits, whether it be coding, a medical field, or sport.
There’s also unfortunately a 5 to 10 year career burnout that is not talked enough about to college kids, and I’ve seen it among some friends and family across the board regardless of profession - doctors, nurses, dentists, attorneys, finance professionals at big brokerages, software engineers. Kids need to be taught to be adaptable and that is ok to reinvent yourself at any given point in time.
 
The benefit of sending your child to IUSD is that, it's a school district with growing enrollment vs many older neighborhoods are now facing serious declines and school closures.

I graduated from ABC school district centered around Cerritos and its immediate areas bordering Lakewood, Artesia, and Hawaiian Gardens. For those who don't know where it is, it's near where 91 FWY meets 605 FWY.

For 2025 academic year, the district has 1400 graduating high school seniors vs 1000 elementary school intake. For the class of 2024, there was a decline of 356 students, and for class of 2025 it will be another 400.

The school district has 16% out of district transfer students. My daughter attends an elementary school in Cerritos with 4 kindergarten classes, 3 out of 4 are dual English/Mandarin immersion with many kids from outside district (including my daughter). But even with the added kids from other districts, the net gain is only +18 kids from last year.

The district is looking to close/merge schools to save money. Cerritos is an older neighborhood (compared to Irvine) with many empty nesters and old folks who will stay until they're carried off to the funeral home. There isn't much new construction and few young families moving in. Thus, the school district will face many challenges.

Nearby school districts like Downey also face the same challenges, with local births declining from 1800/year down to 1000/year over the past 2 decades. They have been able to maintain school enrollment through taking kids from nearby cities, but it has reached a limit where enrollment will decline.

Fewer kids means less money, and more school closures/mergers. For now this is an issue that IUSD does not have to deal with.
 
momopi said:
Nearby school districts like Downey also face the same challenges, with local births declining from 1800/year down to 1000/year over the past 2 decades. They have been able to maintain school enrollment through taking kids from nearby cities, but it has reached a limit where enrollment will decline.
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My wife works for Downey and they get so many transfers the slogan should be changed to: "We are not LAUSD."
 
momopi said:
The benefit of sending your child to IUSD is that, it's a school district with growing enrollment vs many older neighborhoods are now facing serious declines and school closures.

I graduated from ABC school district centered around Cerritos and its immediate areas bordering Lakewood, Artesia, and Hawaiian Gardens. For those who don't know where it is, it's near where 91 FWY meets 605 FWY.

For 2025 academic year, the district has 1400 graduating high school seniors vs 1000 elementary school intake. For the class of 2024, there was a decline of 356 students, and for class of 2025 it will be another 400.

The school district has 16% out of district transfer students. My daughter attends an elementary school in Cerritos with 4 kindergarten classes, 3 out of 4 are dual English/Mandarin immersion with many kids from outside district (including my daughter). But even with the added kids from other districts, the net gain is only +18 kids from last year.

The district is looking to close/merge schools to save money. Cerritos is an older neighborhood (compared to Irvine) with many empty nesters and old folks who will stay until they're carried off to the funeral home. There isn't much new construction and few young families moving in. Thus, the school district will face many challenges.

Nearby school districts like Downey also face the same challenges, with local births declining from 1800/year down to 1000/year over the past 2 decades. They have been able to maintain school enrollment through taking kids from nearby cities, but it has reached a limit where enrollment will decline.

Fewer kids means less money, and more school closures/mergers. For now this is an issue that IUSD does not have to deal with.
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I know of one elementary school in Irvine that closed some years ago, El Camino Real Elementary off of Yale/Walnut. Speculating that it was declining enrollment from all of the kids that grew up, moved away, and never came back with kids of their own, long-time residents who stayed put into retirement, while also not having an influx of new families with school-age kids likely due to being priced out of the SFRs in that neighborhood. I think it’s now a new dual-immersion school that uses the building. Just a small pocket of Irvine with very similar dynamics to Cerritos.
 
GrowthStateofMind said:
Downey is near top of payscale for teachers right? Much better than LAUSD payscale from what I’ve heard.
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Yes, that's what she has told me many times. Also, she has the smallest class size this year (24 students) that she has had since maybe before the GFC when education funding was a lot higher. They used to have a cap of 20 students per class back in those days. It could be that the effects of declining transfers are starting to have an effect on Downey like @momopi said.
 
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banstick said:
So families rather send their kids to LAUSD instead of Downey?
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No it's a joke. They don't need to brag about STEM, Magnet, GATE, Distinguished School, AVID, and all the other stuff schools like to brag about. They just need to say we aren't part of LAUSD and the transfers will come rolling in.
 
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