On Tuesday, Advocates for Malibu Public Schools (AMPS) announced Craig Foster, who was elected to the Board of Education in November, would be stepping down from his post as president of the organization, which is focused on creating a Malibu school district.
“With my election to the school board, we all felt it would be best for the district and for AMPS if I were to step away from AMPS,” Foster said. “It’s cleaner, clearer and transparent. At the same time, AMPS has grown considerably and, with the changes made at the end of last year, is beyond dependence on any single individual.”
Foster is succeeded by Karen Farrer, current Malibu High PTSA President and President of Malibu Schools Leadership Council. Farrer also ran for the Board of Ed in 2012.
“As a School Board member and as a liaison between AMPS and the School Board, I look forward to continuing to share this exciting, important journey with AMPS and with all our community members and education organizations,” Foster said.
Parents criticize vaccination rates
During a Board of Education meeting in Malibu on Thursday, Feb. 5, Malibu mom Julie Friedman voiced her frustration on continuously low vaccination rates, especially in Malibu schools.
SMMUSD recently released vaccination rates in Malibu schools from the 2014-2015 school year showing that no Malibu school is within the “herd immunity” zone when it comes to vaccinations, which, according to the World Health Organization, is between 90-95 percent immunized. This means that all children at Malibu schools are at a higher than average risk for contracting measles.
PDMSS shows the highest percentage of voluntary immunization waivers, at 21.2 percent for the school year, up from 19.9 percent in 2013-2014. After that is Juan Cabrillo, with 15.8 percent of parents opting for their children to not be vaccinated, an increase from last year’s 12.3 percent. Then comes Webster with 14.0 percent, Malibu Middle School with 13.3 percent and Malibu High with 11.5 percent opting out of immunizations.
“Since the toxic issues began being addressed in October 2013, I’ve felt that the focus on only the environmental issues and not the below state averages with vaccination rates is a very limited approach to addressing our critical public health issues,” Friedman said.
Friedman’s concerns echo those of the district. The district points out that the data is from August 2014, meaning more parents may have opted to vaccinate their children in the midst of the current measles outbreak, which has now infected 107 people in the state of California alone.
The district and Supt. Sandra Lyon have issued several statements urging parents to vaccinate their children.
PCB action demanded
Other parents who came to the meeting continued longstanding complaints that the district is not responding to the issue of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) on the Malibu High campus, an issue that has stretched on since PCBs were first discovered in 2013.
“I just don’t understand how a year and a half can go by and we’re in the same situation,” said Malibu mom Karen Lee, addressing the school board.
In response, Board Member Oscar de la Torre said that the item is set to be agendized for the first time at the March 19 school board meeting, meaning the board can finally discuss the issue. Because of Brown Act regulations, the school board is prohibited from discussing items not on the agenda, something that has frustrated Malibu parents for months, since the item has never made it on a school board agenda.
“I just want to request that the board agrees with… a report on the expenses, I know the community has given us a report, and we can talk about transparency, how much we’ve spent on the PCB issue here in our district, and also cost scenarios for remediation,” de la Torre said.
“I think it would be good for the board to know,” he added.
Board President Lieberman said that may not be possible, since the board does not yet have enough information on the topic to create cost scenarios.
“I know there’s a lot of words … about comprehensive testing, source testing… I guess I’m just saying, I’m certainly not opposed to learning all the answers to all these questions, I just don’t want to put the cart before the horse,” Lieberman said, stating that it could take several meetings for the issue to be properly addressed.