If Malibu knows how to do anything, it’s rally.
Longtime residents speak fondly of the days they fought for—and eventually won—autonomy as a city back in 1991. Little League supporters will wax poetic recalling days fighting for ball fields for Malibu kids. Just hearing “Measure R” or “PCBs” calls to mind impassioned debates, assemblies, fundraisers, posters, petitions and political organizing.
It seems those days are far from over.
Advocates for Malibu Public Schools—AMPS—leadership is hoping to tap into Malibu’s now time-honored tradition of political activism, calling on school parents to attend the Nov. 16 school board meeting in Santa Monica where a vote is set to take place that could permanently alter the future of Malibu’s schools.
“NOW IS THE TIME FOR AN INDEPENDENT MALIBU SCHOOL DISTRICT!” proclaimed a recent post on the AMPS Facebook page.
The Malibu Times received nearly a dozen letters this week in support of breaking away from Santa Monica atop numerous phone calls, online comments and posts, most saying one thing: Santa Monica, prepare for a fight.
At a meeting in Santa Monica on Oct. 30, Santa Monica’s school board spent more than six hours on a decision about how to proceed with the formation of an independent Malibu school district, and came up largely empty-handed.
All five members of Malibu’s city council attended the meeting, each one insisting support for an independent Malibu school district is virtually universal in Malibu.
“Five of us are wholeheartedly supporting this together—and that’s rare in Malibu,” Council Member Jefferson “Zuma Jay” Wagner told the school board that evening.
Other members took their statements even further—assuring the school board “nothing is going to stop this process from moving forward,” in the words of Council Member Laura Rosenthal.
“We really want your help and support making this separation happen, but if we don’t get it, I’m telling you, we’re going to do it,” Council Member Lou La Monte said.
Malibu school advocates have long framed the fight for an independent district within the context of a fight for Malibu’s basic right to self-representation. Malibu, which represents only 16 percent of students in the combined district, struggles to elect even one representative on the seven-person school board. Malibu parents are forced to drive—liberal estimates go up to three hours round-trip—across two cities to reach district offices. Malibu schools do not enjoy many aspects of the curriculum offered to Santa Monica students, former AMPS president Karen Farrer pointed out in her comments to the board on Monday, including a very limited foreign language program.
Within this context, Malibu independence advocates have, time and again, invoked other rights movements. La Monte went as far as paraphrasing Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I’ve Been to the Mountain Top” speech to the board on Monday, raising some eyebrows in the room—“This is not a civil rights issue, by any means,” School Board Member Maria Leon-Vazquez said dryly.
La Monte’s allusion to MLK was not lost on Santa Monica stakeholders present at the meeting, including, notably, Robbie Jones, a representative from the Santa Monica High School African American Parent Student Staff Support Group.
“What I really heard Malibu saying—I heard them quoting Malcolm [X], ‘By any means necessary’—that’s what I really heard,” Jones said, “but that’s ok.”
Jones went on to acknowledge she felt Malibu and Santa Monica were preparing for a “divorce”—another favorite trope for those on both sides of the debate.
“I know that there’s two families—Malibu, Santa Monica, they outgrew each other. They want to split,” Jones said Monday. “I’m in agreement with that. But I do want the welfare of all the children to be OK. I need all the kids to be OK. And we’ve got a lot of work to do.
“Let’s get it done. And by any means necessary—but good means,” Jones said.
Malibu parents, stakeholders and education advocates are preparing to test the boundaries of those means at the board meeting, Nov. 16 at SMMUSD District Offices, 1651 16th Street, Santa Monica.
To see more Malibu perspectives, check out this week’s Letters to the Editor.
