Reducing class size is a major goal at Malibu High, new computers make the grade at Juan Cabrillo, Point Dume will generate new Hemingways and Webster includes “fresh faces” on staff. Technology and art full-time at OLM.
By Hans Laetz / Special to The Malibu Times
Malibu’s schools are reporting stable enrollment, with some schools nearly full, and no major changes in store for students or parents as they gear up for reopening next week.
Classes at Malibu’s six public and private schools resume next Wednesday. Peak-hour traffic congestion on streets near schools-particularly at Pacific Coast Highway and Morning View Drive-will also be back, a local deputy said.
“For some reason, no one walks to school anymore, or rides a bike, and not just in Malibu,” noted Sgt. Philip Brooks, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s traffic sergeant assigned to Malibu.
Brooks said extra enforcement officers would be in the school areas for the first few weeks of school. He recommends that students be picked up and dropped off several blocks from school, if possible, particularly near Malibu High School.
That combined junior-senior campus expects 1,320 junior and senior high school students this fall, about the same as last year, said Principal Mark Kelly. Routine turnover means eight of the school’s 55 teachers are new this year, he said.
Test scores at Malibu High have been high, Kelly said, “but we still have a cadre of kids at the basic skills level, and that’s our prime challenge this year,” he said. “How do you raise those kids from basic skills to proficiency?”
Reducing class size, particularly in the junior high, has been a major goal this year, he said. That task has been aided by bringing in the resources of Santa Monica College and the Los Angeles County Regional Occupation program, which will fund a few Malibu High classes and free district funding to reduce class sizes elsewhere, Kelly said.
One result is that a late afternoon art design class taught by a college qualified Malibu High teacher is now open to the outside public and high school students for university credit, Kelly said.
“It is a rigorous college art class,” said counselor Luke Sierra. “Students receive college and high school credit” at the University of California or any other school.
The biggest change at the school for students, Kelly said, might be “the marvelous new cafeteria furniture that the parents so graciously donated.”
Next door at Juan Cabrillo Elementary School, a brand new computer lab will be unveiled this fall, said principal John W. Davis.
“The PTA did a great job with that, and the old computers were only two years old, so they have been distributed to all the other classrooms,” he said.
Davis, in his second year, said 340 pupils are enrolled this year, with fifth grade classes full and closed to further enrollment.
At Point Dume Marine Science Elementary School, 312 students will report for classes. No more students can be accommodated there in first, second, third and fifth grades, said principal Chi Kim.
Kim said polishing writing skills will be the prime objective at Point Dume, which she said is the first school in the district to adopt a schoolwide effort at “unlocking the hidden writer within” each student.
Some 80 teachers in the Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District have attended workshops hosted by the Columbia University Teachers Collective Writing Institute. On a schoolwide basis, Point Dume teachers “will concentrate on teaching the writers, not teaching the writing,” Kim said.
Webster Elementary School principal Phil Cott says his fifth-grade classes are also full, and 420 students are enrolled this year. Cott said Webster would welcome six new teachers this year, “and when you have a total staff of 20, that’s a lot of fresh faces,” he said.
Cott said traffic patterns at the school would be changed after the “chaos” of the first week is over. “We will try a new afternoon pick-up pattern, and have two pick-up zones: one on front of the school, and one down at the bus ramp below the school.”
Just across the street, Our Lady of Malibu’s 170 K-8 students report back to school on Tuesday, but fourth grade and younger students have early dismissal all week in order to let them adjust from vacation to school, said principal Matt Weber.
The parochial school has added a full-time art teacher, as well as a full-time computer technology teacher, Weber said.
“He’s experienced in the business environment and in designing computer systems for schools, and we’re excited about that,” he said.
OLM had 140 students two years ago, 170 students this year and room for about 15 more, Weber said. Tuition is $5,200 per year but some students will receive financial aid. Weber said OLM and its neighbor across the street, Webster Elementary, have cooperated on new crosswalks, parking stripes and use of the shared parking lot at the intersection of Winter Canyon Road and Civic Center Way.