The local school district will not get an extra $530,000 if it does not agree to the Santa Monica City Council’s terms.
By Jonathan Friedman / Assistant Editor
If the Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District wants to receive an increase in Santa Monica city funding, it is going to have to halt its practice of signing confidentiality agreements with parents of special education students-at least temporarily. The Santa Monica City Council last Tuesday voted 4-2 that it would raise its contractually obligated $6.5 million annual contribution to the school district only if the district places a 10-month moratorium on the confidentiality agreement practice while it does an independent review of its special education program. The council also said the district must entirely stop the practice of placing confidentiality clauses in resignation agreements with employees, as it did with former Chief Financial Officer Winston Braham. Braham appeared at that meeting and answered the council’s questions about his agreement with the district. (See story below.)
SMMUSD officials must now decide if they are willing to accept the City Council’s terms or if they are going to reject the increased funding in favor of continuing a system they say prevents special education costs from skyrocketing because of possible litigation. Regardless of which path it takes, the district still plans to conduct a review of its program.
“We have to really weigh our options and consider what the consequences are of a moratorium,” SMMUSD Board of Education President Kathy Wisnicki said in an interview this week.
District Superintendent Dianne Talarico said in a Tuesday interview that she and Deputy Superintendent Tim Walker are doing the research to prepare for a staff recommendation for the June 28 school board meeting.
Of the 1,500 special education students in the district, 88 are receiving increased special services. The district has forced their parents to sign documents stating they will not disclose the services their children are getting. District officials have said the secrecy is necessary because each education plan is different for each student. The confidentiality prevents parents from trying to compare what their child is receiving to another, when the comparison might not be valid. Also, the resolutions prevent the student’s education plan from going to court. Wisnicki said the district has saved millions of dollars in potential litigation costs because of the practice.
But several special education parents who attended the meeting said they live in fear after signing the agreements. Some City Council members said they had heard similar stories from other parents who did not attend the meeting about signing what they called “gag orders.”
“I have been deeply touched and moved by the parents that have contacted me,” said Councilmember Robert Holbrook. “It’s just a heartbreak when people start off by saying ‘I’m not sure I can talk to you … I don’t know what will happen to me by talking to you or responding … I’m scared to send you this e-mail, maybe I shouldn’t include my name.'”
Councilmember Bobby Shriver added, “I find it wildly inappropriate that people living in Santa Monica would quake; professional people, medical doctors … would be afraid to sign letters. This atmosphere has been created and does exist.”
But not all the council members demanded a moratorium. Mayor Richard Bloom and Councilmember Pam O’Connor cast the dissenting votes.
“This is an inappropriate direction for the council to take,” Bloom said. “We are placing ourselves essentially in the role of the school district. And I think it is to the detriment, ultimately, that we set a course in that direction for the parents and children of both Santa Monica and Malibu.”
Bloom supported a proposal made earlier in the meeting by a group of education activists who said the district would still conduct a review of its special education program, but it would not have the moratorium. When Bloom made a motion for that proposal, he could not get another council member to support it.With six council members voting (a seventh member, Kevin McKeown, could not vote on the matter because he works for the district), at least four needed to support a motion for it to pass. It appeared that the moratorium would not get a fourth vote. But as the hearing crept into its fourth hour (the entire meeting lasted more than seven hours), Councilmember Ken Genser said he was willing to make a compromise because he did not want to create a stalemate like there was last month when the council voted on this issue and was unable to get more than three votes on any motion. Genser said he voted for the moratorium “with a great reluctance.”
Talarico would not specify in the interview this week how she felt about the moratorium. But when she was asked at last week’s meeting by council members about whether a moratorium was possible, she said, “I think it’s an awkward situation that we are being put in right now.”
Earlier in the meeting, when Talarico was asked about the confidentiality agreements, Talarico, who was hired less than a year ago, said, “It’s the policy that I’ve been hired to follow, and I will do so until such time until it will be considered to be changed or not.”
Later in the meeting a special education parent questioned where this policy is written. Talarico, shortly after, adjusted her earlier comment, saying, “It is a practice, not a policy. There is not a written policy on the agreements that we have for special education students.”
The Santa Monica City Council agreed to make annual contributions to the school district of at least $6 million beginning in 2004. The deal was brokered with a group of education activists called Community for Excellent Public Schools, or CEPS. The agreement, which lasts through at least 2009, was created as a substitute for holding a referendum on city funding of the district, which CEPS could have forced since it collected enough voter signatures.
There are clauses in the agreement to increase the funding, including this year, with the potential for the amount to rise to $7.25 million, a $750,000 increase from last year. The council has already agreed to increase the total by $220,000 to cover inflation. It is the remaining $530,000 that remains in dispute. Last month, when the council failed to pass a majority decision on the funding increase, it set aside the $530,000 in a special account so it will be available if the city and the school district are able to come to a resolution.