Authored by Rick Moran via PJ Media,
In 2003, the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) had 703,000 students. "The district had been running year-round schedules, with the school year shortened by nearly a month, to accommodate its burgeoning student population," reports the Los Angeles Times.
Over the last 23 years, district enrollment has declined by more than 50%. When it became obvious that enrollment had passed its peak, the LAUSD canceled 18 construction projects for new schools in 2007.
But one of those projects, zombie-like, came back from the dead. A charter school, Camino Nuevo Charter Academy, won approval from the school board to build a school at 1215 Miramar Avenue. The state had already earmarked the funds for a charter school, so LAUSD gave the project the green light.
"The school was paid for with a combination of state funds, district funds, and a state loan the charter would have to repay," reports The Times. "The district's facility division acquired the land and managed the construction, which began in 2011, with the Camino Nuevo charter school opening in 2013."
At the time, the LAUSD school board was all for charter schools. It helped relieve some of the overcrowding in the district and didn't appear to threaten enrollment.
All that changed as the decades rolled by. Camino Nuevo closed the campus in 2021 and left behind
