Hermosa Beach's two public schools face a funding crisis that has reached a critical point. Most estimates place the remaining life of the school district at two years. 

The fact that most Hermosa residents are not aware of the crisis means we are in danger of not taking action soon enough to save the schools from a possible takeover.

As we all know, California is essentially bankrupt. Cuts in spending for education are hitting all districts very hard after many years of inadequate funding. 

Deferred payments of funds promised from Sacramento will threaten the ability for the Hermosa Beach City School District to continue to make its payroll in the near future. 

Bottom line: Hermosa Beach can no longer afford its school district in its current form. 

If you look at the district’s financials you will see that, despite superhuman fundraising efforts over the past few years by the Hermosa Beach Education Foundation and PTO, the district’s expenses still exceed the money it takes in—and this same state of financial affairs will begin to affect nearby districts as well. 

Many in our community have decided that the problem is just too enormous to contemplate and prefer to believe that everything will work itself out. It won’t. 

The U.S. education system is now completely broken. The affluent areas will soon be under threat by the same forces that dismantled the less wealthy districts starting in the 1990’s. It is just a matter of time.

The future, considering all of these facts, looks depressingly grim, especially if you have children. But there is some hope.

The good news is that we have an opportunity to not only resolve our schools’ current crisis, but also transition to a model that will be financially sustainable regardless of mismanagement at the state level. 

It has the added benefit of greatly enhancing the value of the larger Hermosa Beach community.

The decision for residents, both with children and without, is to decide if primary education is a core value of our city. If we turn our backs, the schools will close or be absorbed by LAUSD. 

Families with children will almost certainly leave, and consequently Hermosa Beach’s property values will decline. 

If the community decides to take responsibility and fund the schools to the appropriate level we could create a virtuous circle and achieve the following through a marginal investment of effort and money: 

• the schools will attract and retain good students, 
• property values will improve, 
• more families will move to Hermosa Beach to send their kids to its great schools, more great teachers will want to come here, 
• the schools will get better, 
• property values will continue to improve. 

There is an effort underway to make this vision a reality, but we need the support of the entire community to make this change happen, keep our schools independent, and maintain Hermosa as a special place. 

We need all of the parents, property owners, retirees, and single young adults to agree that the schools are a core component of our community’s character and worth funding appropriately now and in the future. 

This will likely have to take the form of a tax. 

What I pledge is this: once on solid footing we will not have to come back for another bailout; the tax should sunset after 10 years; and the tax will support something for the entire community, not just the schools.

Through this plan, we can achieve two main objectives by which our schools will benefit:

1. Gain direct control of Hermosa schools by converting to a charter district. With this approach we create the freedom to solve our financial crisis, enhance our children’s education, and de-couple from a failing U.S. education system. Basically, our children will get a private school education in a public school environment.  
2. Create a financially sustainable model to lessen our dependence on state funding, provide autonomy for educational choice, and enhance the value of the Hermosa Beach community.  

The plan is challenging, but we need the entire community’s support to make it achievable. If we succeed, the benefits to all of Hermosa Beach will be incalculable. If we fail, we will quite simply fail to secure the future of our community. 

To help us keep our schools independent and convert to a charter district please join us at: www.savehermosaschools.org

Russell Wilson moved his family to Hermosa Beach in 2009. He is a husband and proud father of 5-year-old twins. Wilson works as a technical executive and entrepreneur who is currently leading software teams for the U.S. Air Force in El Segundo.