Los Angeles County Committee on School District Organization hears from Malibu residents
Now that divorce proceedings are stalled again between the City of Malibu and the Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District, the city has taken its request to form an independent school district straight to the county in an effort totake action rather than wait for Santa Monica to meet its self-imposed deadlines on separation agreements.
Meeting at Malibu High School on Nov. 13, the Los Angeles County Office of Education’s County Committee on School District Organization, an 11-member elected body that studies and makes recommendations and decisions on school district organization in the county, got an earful from Malibu residents in the second of two public hearings.
However, before parents were able to address the committee, Santa Monica representatives pleaded their case. The remarks of SMMUSD Board Member Laurie Lieberman were not well-received by the audience. Lieberman, who is on the unification subcommittee, stated, “I am frustrated that we’re here and I’m certainly not happy to be booed.” The board member defended the delays, saying “We believe it is incumbent on us to do our due diligence and to take community input seriously.”
However, AMPS (Advocates for Malibu Public Schools) President Wade Major stated that at the previous public hearing in Santa Monica, “…and its 90,000 plus residents, you did not hear from a single parent or student, the stakeholders that really matter, and none online.” Major gestured to the crowd that showed up in Malibu. He also
reminded the committee that noncontiguous communities are not permitted to unify, making the current SMMUSD “in violation of state law.” Major added, “Every date this process is delayed, they are playing you for fools and harming our children. This district is trapped by its own structural dysfunction, and it has been so for decades, when many of us who are now parents were students ourselves.”
After hearing from many Malibu parents frustrated about the lack of communication from the district during the recent power shutoffs and fire in Malibu one parent said, “We cannot and should not be relying on a district that is 22 miles from us to make real-time decisions in an emergency. I don’t think I need to remind anyone in this room of the shortcomings that occurred during the Woolsey Fire. My family lost our house and we were displaced for a couple of months in another school district, and I was actually receiving truancy notices from the district. We have a vibrant community of intelligent and creative people in Malibu who are ready to advocate and build a school district that can serve our community in the best way.”
The attorney representing Santa Monica, David Soldani, remarked, “The grievances we’ve heard from this community have very little to do with the actual legal criteria that must be satisfied to create a new school district. I don’t mean to belittle the complaints and the issues they have, but you don’t get your own independent school district just because you want it, and you don’t get your own independent school district just because you don’t like something the district has done the past.” Soldani then advised, “If the city and the district are not arm-in-arm in this endeavor with no signed agreements, you will never have unification, not ever. My advice is this: Take the passion, take the energy, lobby your City Council and your sitting negotiating team to get back to the table with the district, finish the agreements. By proceeding unilaterally, they are jeopardizing this unification, so I strongly urge you to urge your representatives to get back to the table so we can finish this work.”
Malibu’s unification attorney Christine Wood countered, “It would just be stunning for me not to address the level of arrogance and defiance that you saw at this mic just now. It gives you a complete representation of the type of un-cooperation and entitlement that we experience as a city when we were negotiating with the district.” Wood also questioned earlier comments by Lieberman saying, “Board Member Lieberman claimed that we negotiated agreements that were equitable for all students. That’s what she said, word for word. The question to be asked is then why did she not support this agreement at the Oct. 15 board meeting when they decided not to bring the agreements to a vote?Remember, they have a seven-member board. Three of those members were on the separation subcommittee. If all three of those members had supported the agreement that they negotiated, that she then called just today, called equitable, all they needed was one additional vote and they would have had that from the board member from Malibu. Instead at that Oct. 15 meeting, Board Member Lieberman put up excuse after excuse, obstacle after obstacle and made sure that those agreements never came before the board for ratification.”
Wood explained, “It can be another five or six years from now, even at best case scenario, not to count the kind of litigation we’re probably going to face from the district before Malibu has local control. So please, don’t allow the district to continue to prolong this community’s desire for local control.”