After hearing complaints Monday that unclear rules had created confusion and unfairly excluded Los Angeles Unified and other districts, the State Board of Education postponed divvying up $316 million in federal money for the worst-performing schools in the state. Board members acknowledged the situation was “a mess.”

Faced with a time pressure to get the money out to districts before school starts, the board won’t be delaying long. On an 8-1 vote, board members asked for state officials to consider revising the figures. But if federal officials won’t allow any tweaking and further delays, then the board agreed to meet as soon as legally permitted to pass what they concede would be flawed allocations.

At risk is the state’s share of federal School Improvement Grants for turning around troubled schools. Last spring, the State Board designated 188 schools on the list of schools eligible for the money. Squeezed by deadlines  to apply, districts sought grants for only 113 of those schools.

Those districts that requested money for only some of their schools, like Los Angeles, Mt.Diablo and Oakland Unifieds, found out Friday that the State Department of Education is recommending that they be denied any money. Those districts that applied for all of their schools – 65 in total, plus three charter schools — would get most of what they requested – as much as $6 million over three years per school.

At Monday’s State Board hearings, district officials disputed whether the state had made the sanction clear and whether it was appropriate in the first place. An official from San Bernadino City Unified, which stands to get $57.6 million for 11 of its schools, said the guidance from the state “was clear and thoughtful.”

“There was no question in our mind that the priority” was to apply for every school, he said.

But Sharon Robinson, assistant to Los Angeles Unified Superintendent Ramon Cortines, said districts were never told that a priority would become an absolute mandate. Los Angeles had 30 schools on the persistently lower achieving list – three times that of  other districts – and used “due diligence” in choosing to seek $75 million for 13 of them.  If it had applied for all 30, it could have sought around $180 million – eating up a big portion of the state’s allocation.

Robinson said the district faced unique obstacles, because courts overseeing overcrowding wouldn’t allow the district to close any of the schools, one of four options that federal rules allowed. It was restricted in using the least restrictive “transformation” option, too. So it turned to another model favored by the feds, converting to charters for seven of the schools. Readers of applications gave Los Angeles Unified a slightly higher score than San Bernadino City received, but state officials didn’t consider that in awarding money.

State Board President Ted Mitchell acknowledged that the State Board bears some responsibility for the dilemma. The board and the state Ed Department had worked closely on the application, and the State Board had talked about and agreed with the feds that districts should be encouraged to apply on behalf of all of their schools. What’s unclear was how that was communicated up and down the line.

The state’s application to for the money clearly said that the state could consider school enrollment in the distribution formula, but state officials gave this little weight. So a school with 420 students in San Benito County is recommended to get $4.8 million over three years for a transformation, while Norte Vista High in Riverside County, with 2,400 students would  get $5.6 million, nearly the maximum $6 million.

Any school can come up with a budget for a huge sum; that doesn’t mean that the state had to approve it. What’s puzzling is why state officials didn’t give extra weight for districts that applied for all schools – but not make it an exclusionary factor. And why they didn’t take school size into more consideration in deciding an award.

What appeared missing was good judgment. Now there’s a race to see if it’s too late to apply it.

The state’s total SIG allotment is $415 million. The feds have told the state must put aside $100 million next year. As an alternate strategy, the State Board also voted to request a waiver from the feds to direct all or part of that reserve to Los Angeles Unified and the other eight districts that would otherwise be denied money.