I would like to be the first, and probably only, blogger to break the rumor floating around the community here in Manhattan Beach, 90266, that the PEP program at Pacific Elementary School lost funding and is going to end. Apparently the principal will resign because of this too.

My guess is that next years kindergarten class will be twice the size and have a huge age range as the “old” kids in PEP now will be in kindergarten, and other kids who might have otherwise been put in PEP won’t have an easy option. This will be a bulge of enrollment that will follow the kids thru the school for the next 5 years.

Pacific School has had high test scores and it’s my theory that it’s in part because the average age of kids in a given grade is high due to the % that went into PEP, and the scores are not adjusted for age when schools are compared, thus Pacific looks good in part because the kids are older and more mature when they take the tests. So I think PEP ending will slightly lower test scores in the coming years too.