Concerned parents and community members came out to Point Dume Elementary School last week to attend a meeting about a proposed realignment of elementary schools, which would involve the combining of the Juan Cabrillo and Point Dume student bodies.
A casual observer, however, could be forgiven for thinking the meeting was centered on 21st century education. That’s because the bulk of information shared with parents in the first half of the presentation centered on ways the district hopes to modernize Malibu’s education—not on issues such as traffic flow, class size or other, more logistical details.
Superintendent Dr. Ben Drati started the meeting with an analogy, likening Blockbuster vs. Netflix to the district’s current dilemma. Drati explained that the school district is prepared to take the steps necessary to make sure its students are prepared for the real world, where “things are constantly changing.”
Eventually, Drati brought the meeting back to Malibu High and the need to create facilities useful to students. To do so, the school district would most likely need a buffer space—the Juan Cabrillo school site.
By combining Juan Cabrillo and Pt. Dume, Drati and Board Member Craig Foster—who also attended the meeting—said the district hopes to create a “healthy social environment’ and allow a larger group of teachers to collaborate and create a stronger program.
This, in turn, would free up the Juan Cabrillo School site for Malibu Middle School. Today, to put it in Foster’s words: “The middle school is lost in the sauce.”
By separating from the high school, the middle school would potentially be getting its own principal.
Drati said the board “can’t leave Webster alone,” and that they would “need to give them something to do” with changes taking places at all the other schools. It was unclear what, if any, changes the elementary school needs.
“This is the first crack we’ve had,” Foster said about the realignment. “This is no longer a TED Talk.”
According to Foster, previous meetings held with stakeholders, teachers and parents at both schools went positively.
The first speaker, a Pt. Dume resident, was not impressed and called the Thursday talk “the most confusing presentation I’ve ever seen in my life.”
Among other complaints, he said that improvements in education were not going to happen by moving schools but retaining the same teachers.
Pt. Dume resident and middle school parent Kathleen Mudd praised the idea of giving the middle school its own space.
As for the situation, contrary to prior comments made by other attendees, she said that in her 17 years in the neighborhood, “When this school was at full capacity … [it] never [had] 360 students.
“When it was at full capacity, it was also considered a neighborhood school … There wasn’t the traffic. A lot of people walked to school. We never had buses.”
To house all the students, tentative plans are to install portable classrooms.
“It will be a squeeze to begin with, but we have been looking at that very hard,” Foster said.
School officials said that due to how fast the plan was moving, there were no details available to address a number of concerns, including the timeline for portables and dealing with the school’s septic system.
Brian Marchetti, a senior transportation planner with KOA Corp. assisting the district with traffic mitigation, described a few options to deal with neighborhood traffic:
- Shuttling students from different areas to Pt. Dume
- Shuttling students from Juan Cabrillo to Pt. Dume to minimize confusion and cars on road
- Customize/stagger bell schedule to minimize pick up/drop off congestion
The actual vehicle to transport the kids has not been decided on, though Foster has put forth the idea of electric buses. Marchetti emphasized that the school district “can’t fix existing problems” the neighborhood is facing with regard to traffic and safety.
Malibu Council Member Skylar Peak, who was in attendance at the meeting, suggested the community or a future City Council could convert the recently purchased Christmas Tree Lot near the intersection of Heathercliff and Pacific Coast Highway into an area for kids to participate in after-school activities without having to get onto PCH, minimizing road danger.
Another resident, commenting on the overall plan, said, “This is the first time I heard something that gave me hope.”
SMMUSD School Board will be meeting on Thursday, May 3, to discuss future steps in dealing with PCBs at Malibu High.