threatened when funding was curbed by the passage that year of California Proposition 13, placing a limit on the rate at which property taxes could be raised. Reduced salaries and other cost-cutting measures saved the district at that time. By fall 2008, there was only one child from Gorman attending the elementary school; 40 came from the El Tejon Unified School District and one was from Neenach in the Westside Union School District. The Los Angeles County Office of Education had warned a year earlier that the district might be dissolved if it did not find a way to solve its problems. But a land developer, Centennial Founders, in the meantime stepped forth with the desire to save the school district until it could build a proposed 23,000-house planned city east of Interstate 5 on Tejon Ranch property along Highway 138. It agreed to pay for a consultant to help the district find ways to stay afloat financially until the houses could be built and new schools constructed and operated there by the Gorman district. Enrollment In September 2008, Gorman Joint School District had just one K-8 elementary school with an enrollment of 42 pupils, only one of whom lived in Gorman. The others were transfers from neighboring El Tejon Unified School District or Neenach in the Westside Union School District. In December 2010 Superintendent and Principal Martin Schmidt said that the district was at that point entirely a "school of choice" which had more than doubled its enrollment to 98 pupils and increased its Academic Performance Score from 679 to 784, with 800 being the goal for achievement. The increase in enrollment brought twice as much money from the state as before.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://mountainenterprise.com/atf.php?sid=7931&current_edition=2010-12-1 |title=Patric Hedlund, "Gorman School Wins Kudos From Governor Schwarzenegger," Mountain Enterprise," December 17, 2010, pages 1 and 12 |publisher=Mountainenterprise.com |date=2010-12-17 |access-date=2012-03-15}}</ref> Johannis Andrews, the principal for the 2011–2012 academic year, said in August 2011 that attendance had increased to 101 pupils, with five teachers. In order to bring in additional average-daily-attendance funds from the state, the district before 2008 took on responsibility for the Gorman Learning Center charter school in Redlands, away (Google map). The center had about 800 home-school pupils enrolled. Ruth Ralphs In January 2008, Ruth Ralphs was honored for 33 years of service to the Gorman School District. Ralphs was secretary-treasurer of James L. Ralphs Inc. and vice president of Tri-Foods, which owned