Former Malibu Education Activist Dies at Santa Barbara Residence

• Mary Kay Kamath Played Key Role in School Change

BY SUZANNE GULDIMANN

Longtime community activist and former Malibu resident Mary Kay Kamath has died at her home in Santa Barbara, following a long illness.
Kamath is remembered by many in the community for her passionate commitment to local public school issues. She served multiple terms on the board of the Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District in the 1980s and ’90s.
One of the first Malibu residents to be elected to a seat on the board of education, she said she stayed on the board so Malibu would continue to have a voice.
During the enrollment decline in the 1980s, Kamath was a supporter of the plan to close Point Dume Elementary School, the school her own children had attended, a decision that rankled many Malibu residents. The school was closed at the end of the 1983 school year, and remained closed for a decade.
However, Kamath was also an advocate for the formation of Malibu High School, incurring the wrath of Santa Monica residents, who felt that the district could not afford another high school during a time of budget cutbacks, with her view that the district could support the separate Malibu school, and that Santa Monica would not lose anything in the process. MHS opened in 1992.
“She was always involved with children,” Mary Kay’s husband, Sanjiv Kamath, told the Malibu Surfside News. “All of our children went to the Malibu schools, and she went also, to help in the classrooms and the PTA. That led to the school board. She meant everything to our family.”
Kamath also served on the board of directors for the Point Dume Community Services Board. In 1996 she ran unsuccessfully for a seat on Malibu City Council.
Sanjiv Kamath continued to commute part time to Hughes Laboratories, but the Kamath family moved to Santa Barbara in 1999, where both Mary Kay and her husband were active with the Santa Barbara Religious Society of Friends, or Quakers.
“Mary Kay believed one’s interest was best served by doing the right thing rather than the convenient thing,” Malibuite and longtime friend Connie Jenkins wrote in a letter to the Malibu Surfside News.
Family members said that there would be no formal memorial service. It was added that those wishing to act in her memory could make a donation to the charity of their choice.
“She felt that donations to charity would be a better use of money than anything else,” Sanjiv Kamath told The News.