Major Changes Slated for the Malibu High School Campus

• Four-Decades Old Classrooms to Be Demolished

BY HANS LAETZ

Demolition of two 40-year-old sections of Malibu High School and construction of major new classroom and library wings will likely begin in about two years, school officials said Monday.

Rough schedules penciled in by Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District officials envision bids going out in mid-2009 for a whole new front entrance to the school, encompassing a new high-tech library/community center and plaza facing Morning View Drive.

District facilities director Wally Berryman will meet with educators at the Malibu school this week, and with board members Tuesday, to review the $27 million package of projects for the school that opened as a junior high in 1968 and has not had a major makeover since.

The construction is part of the deal approved by Malibu and Santa Monica voters with passage of Proposition BB in 2006. That measure will generate about $268 million in bond funds for the 10 public school campuses in the two cities—about one fourth of the total estimated to be needed for construction at the schools over the next 20 years.

After two years of community hearings, the SMMUSD board has directed that top priority be given to projects that can be completed without undergoing time-consuming major environmental studies. A new synthetic athletics field, new tennis courts, correction of ventilation problems in the new gymnasium’s locker rooms and expansion of the school’s outdoor amphitheater are expected to be tackled first, Berryman said.

And for subsequent large construction to proceed, some major preparatory work must be completed, Berryman said, including building a new parking lot on the campus’s southeast corner, on vacant land between the football stadium and Morning View Drive.

“That parking lot was added as a direct response to requests from the community when we held meetings out there last year,” noted Virginia Hyatt, who oversees the district’s ambitious building efforts as its purchasing director.

Heavy construction is tentatively slated to begin in Fall 2009 with demolition of the office buildings along Morning View between the auditorium and existing library.

They would be replaced by a two-story, high-tech library and computer center and an outdoor plaza that would connect the auditorium, food services area and library, and serve as a grand entrance to the school.

That design concept stems directly from suggestions made by Malibu students, and endorsed by parents and educators, during planning sessions two years ago.

School board president Kathy Wisnicki has asked district officials to work closely with Santa Monica College and City of Malibu officials, who have funding for library and college classroom facilities. “There are multiple levels of opportunity here,” Wisnicki said at an August board meeting. “The city is interested and the college board is interested.”

Under current plans, in two years a dozen middle school classrooms will be relocated to 12 temporary portable rooms parked on the paved basketball courts above the amphitheater, while the single-story classroom wing at the school’s eastern end is demolished, Berryman said.

“There’s nothing wrong with that building, but we need larger classrooms and we need more classrooms,” he said. Tentative plans would place 24 larger classrooms in a two-story structure that would occupy about the same footprint as the existing single-floor building, built in 1967.

Eventually, the school’s offices will be moved into the building now housing the school’s existing, cramped library.

School board member Kelly Pye noted at last month’s meeting that unclean, unsightly bathrooms were the number one priority cited by parents district-wide, a complaint certainly voiced by Malibu High parents.

Berryman said existing deferred maintenance funds are being used to replace toilets and partitions in district bathrooms now, rather than waiting for bond funds to become available.

A new gym and classroom wing was built at Malibu High five years ago, but teachers and students have complained bitterly that both of those new buildings are crippled by design flaws such as tiny classrooms and showers and bathroom areas that are not ventilated. District officials have set up a citizens oversight committee to prevent repeat blunders.

The high school projects dwarf all of the district’s plans for the three Malibu elementary schools, where remodeling projects will be comparatively minor. Major work is also proposed for the district’s aging Santa Monica High School, where extensive new classroom wings will be built.

The City of Santa Monica is also investigating building a parking garage underneath Samohi’s football fields and tennis courts, for public parking for new commercial and residential developments planned near McClure Tunnel, district officials said.

The board will go over the construction timetable and layout concepts at a joint workshop with its Proposition BB Advisory Committee at 4 p.m. Tuesday, Oct. 2, at district headquarters, 1651 16th Street, Santa Monica.