Board Delays Vote on Enrollment Lottery

A school board vote has been postponed on a controversial plan to do away with parent camp-outs for enrolling their children at magnet schools and replacing them with an enrollment lottery.

Santa Ana Unified trustees decided Tuesday to table the item until January. In the meantime, board members said, they will seek advice from the state attorney general on the legality of the current policy and get parents’ views.

Camp-outs to enroll children in fundamental schools have been a fixture in Santa Ana for decades. But this spring, some officials expressed concern that having hundreds of parents sleep for days in tents outside school grounds might violate state laws requiring random admission to the district’s magnet schools.

Parents whose children attend the district’s six fundamental schools vehemently oppose the change.