Malibu education activist Laura Rosenthal on Monday night explained the process to the City Council for how Malibu can form an independent school district, what is called district reorganization. Although the council has no authority in the matter, she did ask the city leaders to endorse the exploration of whether Malibu could form its own district.
Talk of a Malibu Unified School District has come up several times over the years. The idea has received a huge boost in recent months after many Malibu residents felt cheated when the Board of Education reduced the amount of Measure BB facilities improvement money from a staff-recommended $27.5 million to $13.5 million.
Rosenthal began her PowerPoint presentation Monday night by showing various statistics regarding the district, including that the Board of Education has six Santa Monica residents to one Malibu resident and there are fewer than 10,000 Malibu voters and more than 60,000 in Santa Monica.
“In many ways, it is a perfect case of taxation without representation,” Rosenthal said. “Without a majority on the school board, Malibu has little chance of any local control over our schools … The administration is in Santa Monica, the meetings are in Santa Monica and the power is in Santa Monica.”
She went on to compare the battle to the fight for cityhood.
The first step in the process for a separate school district is to get signatures from 25 percent of the voters in the Malibu area (including unincorporated Malibu that is within the school district) on a petition supporting the exploration of the possibility of reorganization. If enough valid signatures are received, the issue is taken to the Los Angeles County Department of Education, which would make a recommendation based on a variety of criteria, including whether it will be beneficial for both Malibu and Santa Monica.
Regardless of the county recommendation, the item would go to the State Department of Education, which would conduct a California Environmental Quality Act study to determine environmental impacts, including traffic, from such a proposal. Then it would decide if the proposal should go before the voters and when. Also, the state department would decide whether the vote would go just before Malibu area residents, or both Malibu and Santa Monica residents. If the idea of a separate school district would make it as far as a vote, during this election, candidates would also run for seats on the school board of the possible new district.
Parcel taxes would not transfer into a new school district.
The council members did not respond following Rosenthal’s presentation, except for Councilmember Andy Stern asking for an item to be included on the next council meeting agenda to vote on supporting the exploration of reorganization.
Rosenthal said about 15 to 25 people have been meeting regularly on reorganization since October. She said the collection of petition signatures has already begun, and they hope to reach the 25 percent threshold soon, targeting the Feb. 5 Election Day as an opportunity to get enough signatures.
While Rosenthal is settled that reorganization is the appropriate action, her longtime ally in the Malibu education scene, Board of Education member Kathy Wisnicki, is still undecided. Wisnicki, who is running for City Council, said on Tuesday she could not make a decision until she sees the financial analysis, although she said that would not be the only factor.
“But I do think it is at least something worth exploring,” Wisnicki said.
The school district’s Council of PTAs, which includes PTA leaders from all Santa Monica and Malibu schools, recently formed a committee to analyze district reorganization. Malibu parent Heather Anderson, who heads the committee, said on Tuesday that the committee’s job is a fact-finding mission, and there is no goal to form an opinion.
“Basically, the issue has been talked about a lot in newspapers,” Anderson said. “The [Council of PTAs] is trying to discover exactly the process involved in it, because people are asking lots of questions and the council didn’t feel up to speed on a lot of the issues involved.”
Anderson said her committee has been doing a great deal of research on state law and meeting with people, including a representative from the County Department of Education.
“What we’ve ended up finding is that half the information out there is wrong,” she said.