Inglewood Unified School District (IUSD) may be closer to exiting state receivership than it’s ever been. 

On Wednesday, a report from the Fiscal Crisis and Management Assistance Team (FCMAT) to the school board confirmed that while measurable progress has been made towards returning the district to local control, the end is not yet in sight. Still, the FCMAT report was a cause for celebration. 

The district has been under receivership for more than 12 years. After requesting an emergency loan from the state in 2012, the district was automatically placed into receivership with the state. The state Superintendent of Public Instruction was initially charged with managing the district and appointing administrators. Since the passage of Assembly Bill 1840 in 2018, receivership oversight was moved from the capitol to local counties. The L.A. County Office of Education (LACOE) has been responsible for IUSD ever since. 

Inglewood Unified is one of only four districts under receivership in the state. Under state control, the district has seen students and teachers leave in droves. The receivership has not been well received by community members who have seen the district slowly unravel from inconsistent management and undemocratic rule.

The FCMAT report and the progress report given by county-appointed district administrator James Morris underline how much progress has been made to meet some standards and how little has been made elsewhere. The FCMAT requires that the standards of five areas of operations be met: community relations and governance, personnel management, pupil achievement, financial management, and facilities management. For each area, the district must reach a certain score across several standards and maintain that score for two years. 

This year, the district crossed into new territory with significant improvements to its personnel management and pupil achievement according to FCMAT. FCMAT CEO Michael Fine and FCMAT chief analyst Debbie Riedmiller presented the progress made in the district based on their on-site observations and analysis conducted earlier this year. 

According to Fine, Inglewood Unified is the focus of most of FCMAT’s work with districts in receivership. He acknowledged the “long haul” of the receivership and credited Inglewood’s recent success with the newfound stability in district leadership.

Throughout the receivership, Inglewood has gained and lost countless administrators. “The single greatest risk to the California public school system is the short tenure of superintendents. The average tenure is two and a half years in California,” Fine explained. 

Fine also noted that a lower rate of turnover in other crucial operational departments has also greatly helped the district make steady progress toward meeting state standards. 

“Stability means a heck of a lot,” said Fine. 

In the category of pupil achievement, Fine reported the district had “Jumped leaps and bounds.” While visiting Inglewood schools this year, Fine noticed a cohesion around academic success that felt more organized across all levels of school management. “There was more sense of a shared responsibility and more urgency to the work than we’ve seen in the past.”

In 2021, the district met the community relations and governance standards. If the district maintains its FCMAT score for pupil achievement and personnel management for two years, it will only need to clear two more hurdles to get the state agency’s seal of approval. 

Fiscal management and facilities management are perhaps the more difficult standards to meet. Financial woes delivered the district into state receivership, and more than a decade later, the district remains well below the standard set forth by FCMAT. On average, the district scored four out of ten in fiscal management. 

“It’s the first area that should’ve been tackled in 2013,” Fine said, warning that substandard financial management would stunt the district even if it improved in every other area. 

FCMAT chief analyst Riedmiller reported that though some fiscal practices were rising to the needed level, a good amount of bookkeeping was being neglected. She explained that ensuring better recruitment and retention for human resources, budget, and payroll staff would improve the planning and execution of best practices. 

Board members Joyce Randall and Margaret Evans were dismayed by some of the low scores in the fiscal department, though they overall expressed hopefulness about the rest of the report. Evans, who had planned to retire from the Board, said the report convinced her to stay on so she could be present for the end of the receivership. Evans praised James Morris’s stewardship of the district, saying his decision to close five Inglewood schools was necessary to get the district on track. 

Boardmember Joyce Randall, who opposes the school closures, suggested the district return to tried and true approaches to increasing enrollment: supporting students and teachers in the classroom. “Everything else, I mean no disrespect, is pushing paper,” She said. 

New Inglewood Teachers Association President John Hughes concurred during public comment. “They talk about stability having an impact at the district level. Well, it has more of an impact in the classroom, and we have had instability. We have to solve that problem.”

Even if Inglewood Unified surpasses the standards set forth by the state in three years, there remains the matter of the debt the district owes. Before the district can be free of the receivership, it must repay more than $20 Million to the state. In the 12 years since the state took over, the district has repaid $7 Million of the $29 Million emergency loan. 

The excitement at the Wednesday meeting could not be squelched though some board members and attendees expressed reservations while they celebrated the district’s progress. Each board member spent much of their speaking time thanking IUSD staff, management, and labor partners for the progress made in the district. At the end of the meeting, Administrator Morris surprised Boardmember Brandon Myers with a belated birthday cake. Everyone sang.

Image is a screen capture from the presentation.