Budget cuts may limit the programs that would benefit from the state-of-the-art facility.
By Caroline Thomas/Special to The Malibu Times
Amid a rough time for education in Malibu, one triumph was celebrated with the opening of Malibu High School’s new theater. Despite the pending cutbacks due to the recent failure of Proposition EE, the parcel tax measure, high school faculty, parents and students gathered at the new facility, which will serve as a top-notch theater for drama, music and assemblies.
It was 10 years ago the school district realized when they created Malibu’s first high school they would have to work around a campus with facilities meant for a middle school environment.
“Malibu is an arts town,” Principal Mike Matthews said, “and we need something worthy.”
“I came to my first board meeting in the auditorium,” District Superintendent John Deasy recalls. “It was pitiful.”
Matthews adds they dubbed the old theater the “cafetorium,” as it was used as part cafeteria, part auditorium and very little theater.
“The decision was made for the children, not the adults,” Deasy said. “We took this bad room and made a fabulous auditorium. It’s what the kids need for school.”
Thanks to Proposition X and 1A (the 1998 bond issues) about $70 million was provided for improvements in the Santa Monica-Malibu United School District: 23 percent of that funding was allocated to Malibu schools.
The improvements to Malibu High School-a new classroom building, a new full-sized gymnasium, an improved track and the new theater-became notorious for construction problems that caused delays and headaches. The district’s financial head, Assistant Superintendent Kenneth Bailey, said the construction budget also has a shortfall of $2 million.
Matthews is pleased with the commitment to forge ahead.
“People said, ‘yes, we’ll make it happen,’ ” he said. “We’re pulling money from every possible source.”
Their innovative financing includes collecting interest from the construction company delays, postponing other projects and fitting funds into existing budgets.
“You get a beautiful building like this and time heals all considerations,” Matthews said.
But other wounds are fresh after the loss of Measure EE. The district and its schools and PTAs are scrambling to figure out how to keep from cutting departments and classes that are not absolutely required. Music, art and theater studies stand to be dissolved at most campuses if new funds can’t be found. Time will tell whether a new measure or other means will save these schools from severe cutbacks.
Amid this time of crisis, the administrators remain optimistic about the improvements at hand.
“I truly hope that Malibu High School can become one of the finest performing arts schools around,” Matthews said.
Deasy added, “This gives us something to celebrate in a bleak time for education.”