The elementary school receives the least amount of funds from donations and PTA efforts. Many of its extracurricular programs may be cut if it doesn’t raise enough money soon, officials say.
By Olivia Damavandi / Staff Writer
While several billion dollars in cuts to the state’s education system for the 2008-2009 school year have decimated the budgets of all three public elementary schools within the city, Juan Cabrillo Elementary School parents and officials say it has been hit hardest.
“We must raise $350,000 or art, science, music and physical education will be cut immediately,” Justin Petretti, Juan Cabrillo PTA vice president of fundraising, said Monday in a telephone interview.
The class sizes at Webster Elementary, Point Dume Marine Science School and Juan Cabrillo have all increased, and each school has been forced to eliminate teachers and teaching aids.
“Our supply budget has been reduced and this means we will need to rely on additional support from our PTA and parents to make up for any shortfall,” Juan Cabrillo Principal Barry Yates wrote Monday in an e-mail.
Pressure to raise funds has also increased for PTAs at Webster Elementary and Point Dume Marine Science School, but Petretti said the diversity of Juan Cabrillo’s student body has exacerbated the school’s financial situation and ability to fundraiser.
“The parents at Cabrillo are not the typical affluent Malibu families,” Petretti said. “We don’t have the celebrities or people who just pull out their checkbooks and write us $25,000 checks.”
For the 2008-2009 school year, Cabrillo’s extracurricular spending budget (comprised of funds raised by its PTA) totaled $150,000; Webster’s spending budget totaled $236,000 and Point Dume’s totaled $349,000, Jesse Bunayog of the district’s Fiscal-Local Projects and Gifts said Tuesday in a telephone interview. Twenty five percent of Cabrillo families donated the suggested amount per child of $1,100 for the 2008-2009 school year.
Yates said the Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District’s interdistrict permit policy has been relaxed for the Malibu schools to foster additional enrollment from children living outside of Malibu. Petretti said this has contributed to Juan Cabrillo’s 35 percent Hispanic population, many of which are children of gardeners and housekeepers who work in Malibu.
In the 2007-2008 school year, 15 percent of Webster Elementary’s student body was comprised of minorities and 5 percent of the student body was comprised of English learners; Point Dume’s student body is 14 percent minority, and 1 percent were English learners; and Juan Cabrillo had a 25 percent minority student body with 14.5 percent English learners, according to the SMMUSD. Petretti said the heightened amount of English learners at Juan Cabrillo has caused its test scores to fall lower than the two other schools, affecting its academic reputation. However, Petretti said, “The reason I send my kids to Cabrillo and like it the most is I want that kind of diversity. It’s unique in Malibu and it’s something I want my children exposed to.”
One reason English learners may prefer Juan Cabrillo to Webster or Point Dume is because it offers a special education program and an occupational therapy clinic, both of which are funded by the state.
To cope with its financial circumstance, Cabrillo’s PTA has created the Dolphin Club in hopes that the community will make donations to prevent the school from losing more programs and to help it reclaim the positions and programs it has been forced to eliminate. Malibu residents will receive Dolphin Club mailers around Labor Day weekend.
“In the past we have always been able to offer private school-like education,” Petretti said. “But if we don’t raise enough money in the next few months, Cabrillo will become just another public school.”
More information about the Dolphin Club can be obtained by emailing juancabrillodolphinclub@yahoo.com, or online at www.thedolphinclub.org starting Sept.8.