MUST Amps Up Drive for Separate Malibu
School District
• Signature Gathering Efforts Now
Underway
A petition drive in support of study of the
feasibility of Malibu terminating its half-century
relationship with Santa Monica in a unified public
school district is in full swing. The effort is being
spearheaded by a group of parents and community members calling
itself the Malibu Unified School Team, or MUST.
The first step in initiating a study of
secession from the Santa Monica-Malibu
Unified School District is obtaining the signatures of
approximately 25 percent of the 8280 registered city
voters and the 1989 voters in unincorporated Malibu (also
part of the district) on a petition indicating
“interest in exploring the creation of a Malibu
Unified School District.”
After the signatures have been validated,
the petition goes to the Los Angeles County Committee on School
District Reorganization, an 11-member panel charged with
reviewing district reorganizations.
The county has strict procedural guidelines
and a set timetable for processing applications,
including the assessment of the financial and
educational impacts of the proposed reorganization on all
of the schools in the system.
Public hearings are an important part of
the feasibility process.
Whatever the county committee’s
findings, the application proceeds to the State
Board of Education where there are fewer guidelines and
time constraints and where intensive political
lobbying—pro and con—can occur.
The state board will conduct its own
feasibility study, as well as do an environmental impact
report before action might lead to a Malibu vote on
separation.
Supporters hope that if they can collect
the necessary signatures this month, the county might complete
its work by the end of the year, and an application could go to
the state at the beginning of 2009.
