Sarah Pye
Editor in Chief
Many Malibu parents are quickly learning that the long road to Sacramento is not only measured in hundreds of miles, but in thousands of signatures, numerous petitions and several council votes as well.
The Malibu Unified School Team, or MUST, has Sacramento in their sights as the final destination for their petition to create an independent school district for Malibu. Members of MUST spoke to the Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District Board of Education Thursday, urging them to support the redistricting process.
Sandy Thacker, a parent of two children at Malibu schools and the secretary of MUST, cited “community identity,” “local control and local accountability” and “a natural disconnect” felt between Malibu and Santa Monica as reasons to support the split.
“We believe that having separate school districts would be the ultimate step for each city to focus its efforts on the students in the community and in its own manner expand the resources devoted to those students,” Thacker said.
Because the school district, as it stands, is non-contiguous (Pacific Palisades geographically separates Malibu from Santa Monica), MUST members pointed out that, were the district lines drawn today, the configuration of the district would be illegal, as current law prohibits non-contiguous districting.
Because Malibu voters only comprise 20 percent of the Santa Monica-Malibu school district, parents have expressed concerns that the needs of students in Santa Monica may often take precedence over those of Malibu students.
The process to form an independent district requires the group to either get approval from the Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District Board of Education or to gather the signatures of 25 percent of Malibu voters. If MUST is able to gather the required amount of signatures (about 4,000), they would not need board approval to take their petition to the next step.
Once the Board has approved the move or the signatures are gathered, the group can then take the petition to the Los Angeles County Committee on School District Organization for approval, based on nine major criteria.
The feasibility of new district lines will be evaluated by the County Committee based on factors such as numbers of students enrolled, costs to the state, disruption of educational programs, and racial make-up of the old and new districts, among others.
Ultimately, the split must be approved by the State Board of Education and then be voted in by Malibu residents. In all, the process can take as many as two years to complete.
Though MUST is only required to get either the Board of Education’s support or the community signatures, MUST members pledged to gather Malibu residents’ signatures first, then ask the board for their support, as well.
In his speech to the board, MUST treasurer and Malibu parent Mitch Clarfield asked that they pass a resolution in support of the redistricting, “but only when we have demonstrated to you that we have gathered the signatures required to take the question to the Country Committee.
“We think that it would be foolish to move forward with this process without knowing that the majority of the members of the Malibu community support the issue,” Clarfield said.
District Superintendent John Deasy issued a memo regarding the Malibu separation process, authored to inform the rest of the board of the steps that will have to be taken for the redistricting to occur. In the memo, Deasy stated his strong urging that “a position of neutrality be taken (by the board) throughout the process.
“It is clear that the Board of Education has no direct decision-making on separation,” Deasy said in the memo, also stating that the redistricting “is ultimately an issue of self-determination for the citizens of Malibu.”
Other board members made statements of support for MUST and Malibu citizens’ rights to engage in the separation process.
“I think we should support the process,” board member Mike Jordan said. “It’s a dialogue that needs to go forward. Even if it’s a limited role, I think it’s important that we’re on the record as supporting the people of Malibu.”
Jordan, the only board member from Malibu, is also a professor of jornalism at Pepperdine.
There was no opposition to the process of redistricting voiced in the meeting, either from board members or parents.
08-30-2004