Rather than go back to the table to continue and perhaps conclude negotiations with the Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District (SMMUSD), the City of Malibu opted for a more combative route…and after yesterday’s rejection they may be regretting it.
Following a blistering report that demonstrated the many shortcomings of Malibu’s separation petition, the Los Angeles County Office of Education (LACOE) Separation Committee voted 6-5 to reject Malibu’s proposal.
Faced with three choices: having their city’s schools remain in SMMUSD, returning to the bargaining table with SMMUSD on a separation plan both parties can agree to or continuing to fight; Malibu chose the latter. The city vowed to appeal to the State Board of Education. A timeline for that appeal has not been announced and similar appeals have taken years according to the Daily Press.
Some history:
In 2017, Malibu first appealed to the county for a separation from SMMUSD. After the county issued a report that detailed the shortcomings of that proposal, city officials and SMMUSD officials entered into negotiations on a “fair” separation. It was expected that the SMMUSD Board of Education would approve that negotiated separation at their October meeting, but after it failed by one vote, Malibu refiled their initial separation plan with the county. At the time, SMMUSD said the petition only failed at their vote for minor reasons that could have been worked out in a matter of weeks.
Regardless, the LACOE completed its public process on Malibu’s proposal holding public meetings and evaluating the plan based on the nine criteria for separation that the county holds. That evaluation was released earlier this week, and like the initial 2017 proposal, it found Malibu’s proposal failed to meet eight of the nine criteria. Specifically, the county found that Malibu’s proposal :
- Was to small. Malibu would not be “able to maintain, enrollment of at least 1,501 students in the new Malibu District.”
- There was no “equitable division of assets and liabilities.” As demonstrated in our last post on the separation, the Malibu proposal would massively disadvantage Santa Monica students.
- Similarly, the new district would not promote racial and ethnic diversity in the way that SMMUSD does.
- The separation would cost the state and county as the new district would have greater building and capital costs.
- The proposal could significantly disrupt education in both new districts.
- The proposal would increase costs for staff and teachers as housing needs would be impacted.
- “Not affect the fiscal management or status of the affected districts,” since reorganization “is likely to lead to a significant impact to the fiscal management of both” districts.
- It’s unclear how the proposal would impact Malibu residents wishing to attend Santa Monica schools and vice-versa.
Proponents of the separated school districts argued that the report did not adequately or accurately predict the long-term economy in the two cities and what that could mean for the bottom lines of both potential school district’s economies.
