The school district Board of Education is considering a policy that could redistribute funds raised by Malibu PTAs to lower-income schools in Santa Monica.
By Paul Sisolak / Special to The Malibu Times
The school district Board of Education (BOE) will discuss at its meeting Thurs., Nov. 3, at Malibu City Hall a policy change that has already met with stiff resistance by Malibu residents. Board President Jose Escarce and other members of the BOE want to change the current Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District fund-raising model in favor of a centralized version that would distribute PTA funding equally to each school. The new policy could result in money raised at higher-income parent teacher associations (PTAs) at Malibu schools being used at lower-income schools in Santa Monica.
Supporters say the change is necessary to close the achievement gap in lower-income schools. Fund-raising used to provide classes and programs varies widely between PTAs at individual schools in SMMUSD, which means that some schools can provide classes and programs that others cannot, which in turn widens the achievement gap.
“I think that with a district-wide approach, the main objective, certainly my main objective, is to try and come closer to having a parity of programs, so the programs we can fund are more equitable throughout our district,” Escarce said.
SMMUSD Superintendent Sandra Lyon said that the proposal was devised in part to level differences in costs from school to school, which could influence the quality of programming and education. In the district, funding spent per student ranges between $50 at lower-income schools to $2,000 at higher-income schools.
“It really is an enormous variance,” she said. “As a district, we want our own schools to be unique and meet the needs of their community, but we don’t want to create a structure that is inherently inequitable.”
If the new policy is eventually approved, fund-raising would move away from PTAs into the hands of the SMMUSD’s Education Foundation nonprofit, which would oversee the program and decide where monies are distributed.
Opponents to the measure note that distributing more funding to lower-income schools inevitably means taking away existing funding to schools that raise more PTA funding.
Malibu resident and PTA member Craig Foster said the program would be “deeply damaging to Malibu schools.”
“What’s at stake right now is the policy piece that describes the big-picture intention of the district,” Foster said.
Foster said the new policy could deliver a severe blow in Malibu schools by taking away their competitive academic edge, which has been provided in part through the efforts of local PTAs. If the new plan passes, he said, Malibu PTAs will be spending more than half their budgets on personnel and staff that they’ll now be unable to hire directly-that authority will go to the SMMUSD Education Foundation.
Foster believes that could place schools like Webster Elementary, PDMSS or Malibu High School in danger of losing instructional aides or classes unique to those schools.
The policy proposal before the board is closely linked to SMMUSD’s Equity Fund. Under the fund, 15 percent of monies donated to local schools are placed on a weighted scaling system that redistributes a bulk of the funding to schools with lower-income students.
Following the Nov. 3 meeting, the board will meet again on Nov. 17 to further discuss the district-wide fund-raising proposal, Lyon said. An official vote is expected on the policy later this month.