I am writing this letter in support of Measure S, the school funding initiative on the June ballot in Malibu and Santa Monica. As a teacher at Point Dume Marine Science Elementary School, I feel the measure is crucial to the health of our local schools. As a homeowner in Malibu, I also support the measure, knowing that the success of our schools only enhances the value of my home. As a parent, I support the measure out of respect for the hard work and dedication of the staff at my child’s school. As a citizen, I honor my responsibility to all children in my community. I supported public schools before I had children and will continue to do so long after my own son is an adult struggling with these issues. As Phil Cott, principal of Webster, stated so eloquently in a letter last week, “Every well-educated child represents an investment … in our collective future.”
I first visited Malibu as a child in the late 1960s when my aunt, the writer Joan Didion, was living north of Trancas on the beach. I fell in love with this place and was heartbroken when she moved into town. She felt she had to move to support the education of her young daughter, who was then finishing elementary school at the original Point Dume Elementary. Malibu High School didn’t exist then and options were limited and unattractive. How far we have come since then, building a world class school system to serve a small, mostly rural community.
I moved to Malibu 10 years ago with my then-husband, Mike Matthews, to begin the adventure of starting Malibu High School. I was reticent about the move. My stereotypes of Malibu as a “movie star” beach town gave me pause about raising my two young sons here. How wrong I was! I found Malibu to be a nurturing, caring community of people that could not be labeled. I was immensely gratified to see the commitment of so many people to the local schools. Since then, Malibu High has graduated students to an array of top-notch colleges, and all three elementary schools have grown and prospered with teaching faculties second to none I have seen anywhere. All of this is due, in large part, to the tireless work of a community that has been passionate about its children.
That is why it saddens me to see us reach this crossroads in which we have to fight just to keep what we have worked so hard to build. We can sit back and blame the state of California for our funding crisis, but we have important choices to make. We need to be clear that the failure of Measure S does indeed threaten the quality of the schools we have spent so much effort in nurturing. They are our schools and our children, and we are risking so much if we abandon them now. I have been in Malibu through fires and mudslides and watched this community care for its own. I received the benefit of this community spirit when we lost our younger son Sean in 1997, and it felt as if the entire town encircled us in its care. I hope to see this same spirit of care surround the children and teachers of Malibu during this critical time-because they are ours to nurture, and ours to fail.
Kelley Didion