When local education activists Karen Farrer, Craig Foster and Seth Jacobson ran for seats on the SMMUSD Board of Education last fall, it was as much to point out that Malibu has not been represented on the board since 2008 (following the departure of Kathy Wisnicki), as to challenge the unlikely chance of winning those seats.
Foster, Jacobson and Farrer joined forces a couple of years ago to form AMPS – Advocates for Malibu Public Schools, with the goal of pushing for a separate and distinct school district from that of Santa Monica. As Foster argued, “This is a case where we really are stronger apart than we are together.”
It was not a conclusion he reached overnight. Foster crunched a lot of numbers over the years, eventually determining that Malibu schools would receive significantly more state funding as a separate district than one represented together with Santa Monica, a much larger city than Malibu.
Craig Foster spent 20 years working on Wall Street (“I’m no stranger to a spread sheet,” he said dryly) before he moved to Malibu and became heavily involved in his children’s education. He serves on the SMMUSD Financial Oversight Committee and the Superintendent’s Advisory Committee.
He also teaches part-time fifth grade math to gifted and talented students at Webster Elementary, where his daughter attends classes, and he is president of the PTA there.
“I guess in some ways I know a lot because I get to see the situation from several different vantage points,” Foster said. “I think the chances of getting greater equity is high with a separate district. The more we explore, the more we find that our students will only benefit from being independent.”
Seth Jacobson has been involved with educational reform efforts in Malibu for 25 years. He said that he first became concerned about local schools’ representation years ago when he served on the task force to select a new principal for Point Dume Marine Science School, and he joined dozens of other parents in trekking down to Santa Monica for meetings.
Jacobson studied political science and film at New York University. He ended up in public affairs marketing and communication, skills he has used to volunteer in the community.
Jacobson is the current president of the Shark Fund, the nonprofit fundraising organization for Malibu High School which raises funds to support a host of academic, artistic, technology and athletic expenses for Malibu High students.
Jacobson said AMPS was working on building core leadership at all the school sites, within the business community and in unincorporated areas of Malibu.
“With community education, leadership teams and a strong advisory council, this will lead to great things for our kids,” Jacobson said. “We already have great schools. This will make them better.”
Karen Farrer has been involved with Malibu schools for 35 years, serving as PTA president at both Webster and Malibu High (where her youngest child currently attends). She is in her 10th year of serving on the board for the Santa Monica Malibu PTA Council. She has been, she says, “in the trenches for a long time.”
Curiously, Farrer is not a product of public education. She attended a Catholic school for 12 years before heading to UCLA, where she took a degree in sociology. After marrying a fellow student, she started a family and eventually became deeply entrenched in local educational issues.
“We hired a consulting firm approved by the district to assess the criteria for Malibu to be an independent district,” Farrer said. “Ironically, the process is called unification, but we actually meet nearly all nine criteria for forming our own district. So now, it’s a matter of outreach and education.”
Anne Payne, who will be presenting the trio their Dolphin Awards, lauded the courage that Foster, Jacobson and Farrer showed in shouldering such a role in educational reform – and the inherent criticism that would come with it.
“They looked at the big picture of finance and said that parents don’t want to raise money for their schools that will just be sent out of town,” Payne said. “They have given so much of themselves to keep our schools prospering. These are very well-deserved Dolphins.”