A much-anticipated report detailing the specifics about how Malibu public schools would separate from the Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District has just been released. The highly detailed report that took a year to write was presented last Tuesday to the Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District Board; however, the presentation will be made again at the Malibu City Council meeting on March 27 and the public is encouraged to attend.
In late 2015, the SMMUSD board unanimously passed a resolution that called for two independent high-performing school districts — Santa Monica and Malibu — so long as the financial interests of the Santa Monica students were protected. The Malibu Unification Negotiation Committee was then formed, made up of three representatives from Santa Monica and three from Malibu who’ve spent well over 140 hours negotiating the terms of the split during the past year.
The 900-page MUNC report addresses the operating budget impact of separation, bonds and environmental liabilities, among other financial issues. A special school board meeting was held to present the report and its findings, and then the MUNC members — who include Malibu City Council member Laura Rosenthal — took questions from the school board for nearly and hour-and-a-half.
“It’s a really complicated report,” Craig Foster, the only SMMUSD board member from Malibu, told The Malibu Times, “One of the things the board said was, ‘We totally trust you. You are the best and the brightest of our community. Four of the six MUNC members are on the district’s prestigious financial oversight committee; however, this is a huge decision for us and it would be nice to have independent verification of the wisdom of the recommendations you’ve come up with.’”
It appears the school board may use School Services of California, a leading public school consulting company that has already worked with the MUNC, before the next SMMUSD board meeting April 20 for a third party verification of the report’s recommendations.
The public can also weigh in on the MUNC report when it is presented again to the City of Santa Monica on March 21 and to Malibu on March 27 at 7 p.m. at the City Council meeting. The Malibu City Council must vote for approval of what’s called “unification” of a separate Malibu school district before the creation of a new school district can proceed.
“After April 20, assuming the school district is prepared to move forward, there will be a meeting — probably in May — with an action item on it, where the school board gets to vote on the action recommended by the MUNC moving forward to support a separation,” Foster described. “The MUNC reported the best way to get separation accomplished is not to go through the regulatory channels starting with the Los Angeles County Office of Education, but rather to go directly to the state legislature, where certain elements of this separation will need to be passed into law anyway.”
Foster is a longtime advocate of the district separation.
“[The March 27 meeting] and the April 20 School Board Meeting are the most important things that have happened and will happen on the path to an independent Malibu school district,” Foster described. “Anybody who has any interest in this subject at all or any desire to support this effort, I would suggest that they try to make not one, but both meetings. The key thing that we hope to come out of this year-long process of studying is that Santa Monica School District would agree to support independent Malibu and Santa Monica schools and to get that to become a reality.”
Rosenthal will not be able to vote on the matter because she is on the MUNC, but she said she hoped many people from Malibu come to the next council meeting to hear about the report and voice concerns.
“We are really encouraging people to come on the 27th,” Rosenthal said. “I think it’s very important to show our school board that this is important to the Malibu community.”