Notwithstanding subdivision (b) of Section 42280 or any other provision of law, a unified school district that is the only school district in a county, that has received more than two million seven hundred thousand dollars ($2,700,000) in federal Forest Reserve funds in the 1992–93 school year and less than one million three hundred thousand dollars ($1,300,000) in federal Forest Reserve funds in the 1996–97 school year, and that has fewer than 4,501 units of average daily attendance in the 1997–98 school year or in subsequent school years shall be eligible to
receive apportionments pursuant to the schedules for a “necessary small school” and a “necessary small high school,” as set forth in this article, for up to the total number of schools in the district that would have met the criteria for classification as a necessary small school or a necessary small high school in the 1996–97 fiscal year, if the district had fewer than 2,501 units of average daily attendance in the 1996–97 fiscal year, except that this section does not apply in a school year in which an otherwise eligible school district receives more than two million dollars ($2,000,000) in federal Forest Reserve funds.