School district officials and local community members are looking to create schools able to provide learning to Malibu students for decades to come.
The Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District held a series of meetings, culminating with one in Malibu on Jan. 30 at Webster Elementary School, to discuss the future of its campuses.
With the forthcoming Juan Cabrillo Elementary-Point Dume Marine Science schools merger, an autonomous Malibu Middle School and the rebuilding of Malibu High School, the school district now looks to supplement teaching with education specifications—defined by SMMUSD, in part, as “planning documents that specify physical requirements of learning environments aligned with the goal that all students graduate ready for college and careers.”
GKKWorks/Cannon Architects, in charge of holding the public meetings, also held some with students and educators to ascertain what they would like to see in schools.
“What was interesting to me is, a good majority of them really paralleled the kind of conversations that, you know, the educators and other stakeholders have been looking into,” Blair Ripplinger with the architecture firm said.
In terms of the campuses themselves, the few parents at the meeting emphasized the necessity of security—especially in light of recent school shootings around the country.
A parent of a student at PDMSS mentioned that though she believed the school was generally well set up, she felt gates needed to be secured properly and on time. Another parent, Jessica Isles, agreed with the sentiment and brought up the possibility of gates that were taller and “not see-through.”
A Franklin Elementary School parent disagreed: “We have fencing all around. I quite like that you can see in. I don’t want my kids going to a compound.”
As for classroom size and furniture within them, Webster Elementary School Principal Patrick Miller emphasized the necessity of flex; i.e., creating room for staff to change their classrooms as needed.
In a similar vein, SMMUSD Chief Operations Officer Carey Upton said, “Buildings we build we use for 60, 80 years and we don’t really know what education is going to be next year.
“I mean … even some of the buildings we built as part of the Measure BB project, which we started back in 2008. Some of those, as soon as they opened, we were immediately going, ‘Well, that actually needs to change to support what we’re doing.’”
Miller then spoke to the initial rebuilding process at MHS, which began several years ago.
“At that time, and I know it’s different now, but there was a lot of discussion between old Malibu-new Malibu, which is a community dynamic. And at that time, there was a large portion of our community not advocating for the big pointed roof with the glass everywhere and all that stuff,” Miller explained. “They wanted the preservation of old Malibu.”
“So, I don’t know if that sentiment still exists in the larger Malibu community, because I don’t want to speak for them. But there is that kind of old equestrian park mentality of old Malibu vs. new Malibu,” he later added.
Attendees also discussed the importance of providing equity among all the Santa Monica-Malibu schools while giving schools their own sense of identity. For example, PDMSS is well-known for its marine science program.
“I think there needs to be a clear division. There’s a limited number of things that would work equally well for Santa Monica and Malibu,” SMMUSD School Board Member Craig Foster said, speaking about the committee tasked with overseeing these changes. “… I think that should be two different committees. But, at [the] very least, they need to take really soberly seriously that it can’t be one size fits well.”
This process starts with the education specifications before moving toward campus assessments and prioritization of projects, creating a master plan, building a new construction design and finally, phase construction. The process began about five months ago; the goal finish date of campus assessments is January 2020.
The funds for these goals will come from the school bond measures—Measure M and SMS in Malibu and Santa Monica, respectively—passed in the general election last November prior to the wildfires.
Community members can access an earlier draft of the ed specs online at www.smmusd.org. The plan will soon be updated with gathered feedback and presented to the SMMUSD Board of Education at a future meeting.