There Goes the Enrollment

But the law doesn't apply to units built after 1978, and it can't prevent owners from taking units off the market, either to raze them or convert them to condos. In addition, housing advocates said many landlords tempted by the hot market have been illegally evicting tenants. Others are using state overcrowding laws to remove long-term tenants, sometimes arguing successfully in court that they should not be required to rent small units to families that are too large for them.

Without rent control, the mothers at Leo Politi said, they too would be gone.

"I looked around for a bigger place and it was impossible," said Manuela Cardoza, who shares a one-bedroom apartment with three daughters and her husband, a day laborer. The family has lived in the unit five years and pays $850 a month.

The same apartment might fetch $200 more today, said Cardoza, gathering up 4-year-old Brenda for the short walk home. "They were asking $1,200 for a two-bedroom in our building," she said, shaking her head in disbelief. "It's very expensive."

The effect on campuses has been mixed. Schools can shrink too far, said Beth Harker, assistant principal at Hollywood's Cheremoya Elementary, where enrollment dropped from 435 students last year to 350 this year because of gentrification and school boundary changes. The school moved from three tracks to one. Even so, four classrooms sit empty.

Total enrollment could fall below 300 next year, which makes Harker a little nervous. "Small comes with its own challenges," she said. For example, grade levels must sometimes be combined and taught by a single teacher, which Cheremoya has not yet had to do. The smaller budget also means less money for school-wide extras, like art classes.

The school's enrollment area is large, reaching into the Hollywood Hills, but nearly all students come from a densely settled stretch of apartments and old homes south of Franklin Avenue. Some of the residences bear fresh coats of paint. One newly refurbished brick building advertises lofts for lease.

Many of those buildings once housed children who went to Cheremoya, Harker said. The school hasn't had the resources to track where their families headed when they left. Curious, she leafed through a stack of past students' files looking for records requests from other schools, the only sure way of knowing where a student transfers. She ticked off the names: Pacoima, Victorville, Orange County, Desert Hot Springs, Canyon Country, Riverside, Temecula, Whittier, Georgia, Florida.

More than half were open questions. "We have no idea where they're going," Harker said. "All we know is the numbers keep going down."