Petitioners hope the county Office of Education, which approved three out of eight petitions last year, proves more receptive than the school district.
By Knowles Adkisson / The Malibu Times
On Tuesday next week, the Los Angeles County Office of Education (LACOE) will hear appeals from parents who wish to make Point Dume Marine Science Elementary School into a charter school for the upcoming 2011-2012 school year.
The Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District Board of Education, at a contentious meeting in early December, denied the charter petition. Outgoing Superintendent Tim Cuneo recommended against the petition, finding it lacked a sound financial plan, among other deficiencies. Petitioners strongly disagreed with the superintendent’s findings, believing that the statistics presented in the petition had been twisted by Cuneo to support a foregone conclusion against it.
Ali Thonson and Robyn Ross, Point Dume elementary school parents who are leading the drive for charter status, started the petition following a meeting in early 2010 where they said Cuneo intimated school closures were on the table if the dour financial climate of both the state and local governments did not improve. Cuneo distanced himself from the comments, but not before provoking fear that Point Dume, as the smallest Malibu public school, would be the top candidate for closure. The school closed in 1980 due to district budgetary problems, before reopening in 1996 with its current marine science focus.
School parents hired a budget writer in April 2010 to prepare a five-year budget for the proposed charter school, and the school’s teachers were involved in drafting the curriculum.
Thonson said she believes the appeal before the county will be a more objective process, and noted that LACOE’s prior experience hearing charter petitions should help as well.
“One thing the county doesn’t have is the emotional attachment to the school itself,” she said. “I think it was really difficult, looking back at the school board members, how difficult of an emotional decision it was for them to make. I don’t think the county has that attachment. And something with the board was [that the charter petition] was really something completely new.”
Jan Isenberg, project director for the LACOE charter school office, said 232 charter schools currently operate within Los Angeles County, although only seven of those are supervised by LACOE. Isenberg said that, during the 2009-10 school year, the county board heard eight charter petitions. Three were approved, three were denied, and two exceeded the number of days allowed to hear it and were voided.
Should the county grant Point Dume charter status, it would operate under county supervision. A board, comprised of parents and at-large community members, would take the place of the SMMUSD Board of Education, running the day-to-day operations of the school, including governance, human resources and financial matters. The charter school would still be governed by state education standards, including test scores, and would be subject to a twice-annual audit. Private fundraising would make up any budget shortfalls. The petitioners currently have more than $400,000 in signed pledges, which will kick in should the school achieve charter status.
Most of the school’s funding would come from state tax dollars for daily attendance.
Petitioners plan to recruit students from outside the school district to the new charter school in order to boost enrollment and alleviate concerns over a lack of diversity. That goal has led to skepticism from some Malibu citizens, who fear that the Point Dume charter school will end up siphoning students away from Juan Cabrillo and Webster elementary schools.
“I think by default that’s what’s going to happen,” Mike Sidley, a local attorney and former council candidate, said. “That takes away revenue [from Juan Cabrillo and Webster, which also are funded by tax money on an attendance basis]. We’re a small town. And change always affects a small town more than a big city. There’s going to be a lot of unintended consequences that may be detrimental to our community as a result of it.”
If the county approves the petition, Thonson said she believes the school will have no problem opening for the 2011-12 school year. If it is denied, the petitioners would take their case to the state body in Sacramento, with a hearing expected sometime in March. If that happens, Thonson said the petitioners might not be granted charter status until May. That would put the administrators under heavy pressure to be able to open in time for the new school year.
Thonson could not say what their chances would be, though she remained optimistic.
“It’s really kind of hard to tell,” she said. “This is something new for us, going to this level. But we are positive and we’re hoping that they will in fact approve us and they [the county] will become the authorizer.”