With the return to school now approaching, the Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District (SMMUSD) Board of Education has facilities on the mind, including potentially locking into the bond measure process and reverting tactics on removing McKinley Elementary School contaminants.
Wednesday’s meeting of the board will feature a vote to authorize an election in both School Facilities Improvement District #1 (Santa Monica schools) and District #2 (Malibu schools), asking for the issuance of bonds on a litany of projects. The board gave staff approval to develop bond measure resolutions, the first since 2018, for the November ballot during its June 20 meeting.
The two bond measures would ask for $495 million for Santa Monica schools and $395 million for Malibu. In Santa Monica, the measure would need be approved by 55% local vote in the November election, with November 2018’s bond Measure SMS passing with 72.07% of the vote.
At the June 20 meeting, SMMUSD Chief Operations Officer Carey Upton ran through the list of projects for both Santa Monica and Malibu campuses, including Santa Monica’s top priority of replacing outdated portable and modular classrooms at the elementary and middle school levels. Other challenges potentially tackled via the measures are developing the district’s Transitional Kindergarten program, beefing up STEM and career technical education facilities, and the completion of the Malibu Campus Plan.
The other main facility item concerns the McKinley Campus Master Plan, specifically another shift in mitigation efforts to deal with contaminated soil and soil vapors. In October 2023, California’s Department of Toxic Substances Control (DTSC) determined that a Removal Action Plan (RAW) was required to move forward with the McKinley plan, after results of soil and soil vapor samples showed detections of arsenic above regulatory guidelines in the soil, as well as detections of "volatile organic compounds" (noted to be dry cleaning chemical agent tetrachloroethylene) in the soil vapor.
After an original plan to remove and replace soil at McKinley, an alternate mitigation process was determined wherein soil would be capped under the surface of structures with pavement, while soil vapors will be mitigated via installation of a soil Vapor Intrusion Mitigation and Migration Engineering Controls System.
However, a staff report for Wednesday’s meeting notes that the plan has triggered Rule 1466 of the Southern California Air Quality Management District (SCAQMD), titled "Control of Particulate Emissions from Soils with Toxic Air Contaminants." The rule states that "earth-moving activities of soil with applicable toxic air contaminants" is not allowed "during school hours when school is in session."
"The utility and foundations work will need to occur while school is in session to complete the project," the SMMUSD staff report states. "While Rule 1466 allows for SCAQMD to provide an exemption when working with DTSC oversight, SCAQMD has refused to grant any exemption and refused to meet with the District."
Wednesday’s meeting will look to adopt a resolution to terminate the Environmental Oversight Agreement and School Cleanup Agreement with DTSC and approve an amended mitigation monitoring and reporting program. Since SCAQMD "will not consider an exemption" for the District, staff is "left with reverting to the previous plan to remove the naturally contaminated soil," at a cost.
"This work must be done prior to school returning," the staff report states. "This work can be accomplished prior to school returning provided it starts right away. There is a significant cost, over $1,000,000, to remove and replace the soil rather than managing it in place as planned with DTSC. Otherwise, the project would be delayed for another year and extensive costs to the project and impact to the school."
Other items on Wednesday include the potential updates to Board Policy and Administrative Regulation on "Alcohol and Other Drugs," an item to properly name and number the policy to align with the California School Boards Association while implementing a "progressively scaled discipline" for alcohol and drug offenses. The proposed policy changes would replace automatic three-day suspensions at the middle and high school level for first alcohol or drug offenses with meetings and counseling sessions. A subsequent offense would change from a five-day suspension to a one-day suspension followed by counselor meetings.
The board will also make two administrative appointments at the meeting, those being a new principal for Malibu High School and a new assistant principal at Grant Elementary School. An appointment for a Director of Student Services was postponed to a special August 1 meeting, while an appointment for an assistant principal at Edison Language Academy and McKinley has been postponed to an undetermined date.
The July 24 meeting begins at 6 p.m. Visit https://www.smmusd.org/boardmeetings for more information.
