Voices of Calm Urge Compromise on SM-Malibu Schools Split

• Board of Education Decision to Shift $13.5 Million from Malibu High Is Not Final

BY HANS LAETZ

Bitterness and rancor on the part of some Malibu parents has begun to subside as the citizens committee that suddenly stripped $13.5 million in bond dollars from Malibu High School contruction projects and recommended that money rebuild antiquated Santa Monica High has begun to reevaluate that decision.

Meeting in Malibu for the first time on Monday, the Measure BB Advisory Committee toured the joint middle/high school campus and was told by district officials that the local school, built in phases starting in 1951, has never been upgraded to meet high school needs.

One of the three Santa Monica school board members who attended the MHS tour said it left her “open” to revisiting the controversial reallocation, which was adopted by the board and has sparked a widespread campaign in Malibu to split the district, and vote down a critical funding ballot issue in two months.

Board member Maria Leon-Vasquez said “I heard some arguments I had not heard before, and I’m open to bringing it back before the board.”

Her comments came after Malibu principal Mark Kelly told the committee members that, without the proposed junior high classroom block that was deleted from construction plans, he does not have a way to separate sixth graders from taking classes amidst twelfth-graders. “That is something that is a major parental worry when parents consider sending their kids here.

“We are losing students to other schools because parents have that concern,” Kelly said. “This is a building that was built for a junior high school, and not built for the mix of students that we have here now.”

Assistant district superintendent Mike Matthews noted that, due to absences, only six members of the 14-person committee had voted to eliminate construction projects at middle schools and transfer the funds to Santa Monica High.

“That was a split vote, that resulted in a split board, which resulted in a split community,” Matthews said. The former Malibu High principal implored committee members to go back to work “and commit to a consensus. It will require long meetings, patience and professionalism.”

Parents from the district’s two middle schools in Santa Monica also criticized the committee’s decision to suddenly shift all construction money from the district’s middle schools to Santa Monica High.

Mario Romero, president of the John Adams Middle School PTA, said, “All the schools need help, immediate help. I would like to remind you that whatever decision you make, you are going to have to be equitable.”

Several parents from Santa Monica and Malibu criticized the committee for making building decisions when many of them had never set foot inside classrooms on many campuses. Chris Harding, a committee member from Santa Monica and supporter of the funding shift, said he had only peeked in windows when he visited the Malibu campus on a weekend before the controversial vote.

On Monday, Harding and other committee members were shown that many Malibu classrooms have been carved out of storage areas, employee lounges and closets. “We’ve got four special education classrooms in classrooms of less than 600 square feet,” district facilities manager Wally Berriman told the committee. “What we really need is a full-size classroom for these students, a therapy center, and offices.”

Berriman and Kelly sketched out a multiple-phase construction plan aimed at improving the high school quad and moving younger students out of the high school area, which cannot be done unless the junior high classroom block is built.

“The identity of a middle school campus and separate high school campus is very important for us,” Kelly said.

The Measure BB committee, most Malibu parents feel, was hijacked by a last-minute push from Santa Monica High parents to upend a years-long process of setting building priorities. Some parents told the board that February’s crucial parcel tax vote, needed to maintain $10 million in classroom services, will face certain death if Malibu taxpayers don’t see local construction that they were promised in the $268 million Measure BB bond election.

Last week, the SMMUSD board heard a series of Malibu parents complain about the decision, and all-but-ignored a request from board president Kathy Wisnicki to ask its staff to investigate if the decision-making process had somehow violated the state Open Meetings Act or board policies.

Malibu parent Colleen Baum was given 15 minutes to express her view that the board had improperly considered the matter, and her contention that Santa Monica parents on the advisory were unfairly connected to boosters for the larger school.

Another Malibu school advocate, Karen Farrer, told the board that some Santa Monica members based their vote to yank funds from Malibu on the fact that the school is lushly landscaped as a result of one Malibu parent’s years-long campaign. “Why does our campus look so good? Because we have one mom who decided she wanted it to look good,” she said.

“Why are we being punished for having that kind of volunteer help and that kind of leadership?” Farrer asked.

Another parent, Deborah Kramer, told the board Malibu parents “have repeatedly experienced betrayal and isolation and the sense of being on [the] fringe.

“They are ready to participate in what is possibly the logical next step,” she said. “Malibu became a city, and it is logical for Malibu to become its own school district.”

The six Santa Monica residents who make up the voting majority on the board rejected Wisnicki’s request.

“It’s just allegations being made, there are no facts to support any of those allegations,” said board member Leon-Vasquez. “I really wouldn’t want our staff to spend the time and energy to look for something that maybe isn’t there.”

“I have to say with great sadness that this is the first time that I have felt like the lone Malibu board member,” Wisnicki said. “In all the years that we’ve been together, I felt like we’ve been a very collaborative group, and I feel that there has been trust destroyed.

“There has been a disenfranchising of the Malibu community,” she continued, “even after members of the public [spoke], I’m still not sure that the members of the board really get the issue.”

The board had already referred the matter to the Measure BB committee, which took no vote after its Malibu meeting Monday. The committee will meet next when it tours Santa Monica High on Dec. 10.

For the Record: Two weeks ago, it was reported that the SMMUSD school board has 10 members. There are actually only seven board members, but the district website lists the three nonvoting student reps in the members box.