After an hour-long conference with legal counsel, the City of Malibu stated it is moving forward with an attempt to create an independent Malibu Unified School District, without continued negotiation with Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District (SMMUSD) officials. Instead, the city will be coming to the Los Angeles County Committee on School District Organization with its original 2017 school separation petition.
"As the [SMMUSD] school board has failed to approve the agreement that was recommended by their committee within the mutually-agreed upon deadlines, the City Council has voted unanimously to move its petition forward unilaterally with the County Committee with an independent feasibility study that does not include a number of generous financial terms that have been offered by the city in an effort to work together," Malibu City Attorney Trevor Rusin stated after the closed session. "The city is requesting that the independent feasibility study and petition be considered by the committee at the upcoming November hearings."
Malibu stated its latest feasibility study submitted to the committee incorporates "much of the financial and operational groundwork" developed over what is now years of negotiation. In September 2021, a LACOE Division of Business Advisory Services preliminary report to the committee addressed the original petition feasibility study, ultimately noting that eight of the nine California Department of Education (CDE) criteria for unification "may not be substantially met."
Of these criteria, the LACOE division stated that a proposed Malibu USD may not be able to maintain enrollment, and that a split between Malibu and Santa Monica educational entities would "likely impact" school housing costs and fiscal management for the Malibu and Santa Monica districts. Another CDE criteria is "community identity," which the 2021 report also questioned.
"Because the area proposed for a Malibu USD has been a part of the Santa-Monica Malibu USD for 70+ years, and has sent students to Santa Monica area schools for more than 100 years, [Malibu has] long-standing inclusion in Santa Monica-Malibu USD and do not need to start a new school district to establish community identity," the 2021 report stated.
This statement goes against the motivations of Malibu in the unification process, which the city stated would provide Malibu residents with "local control" and would reflect "the community’s unique needs and values."
In September, the Malibu and SMMUSD unification sub-committees announced a completed unification package with three key tenants: A Revenue Sharing Agreement, an Operational Transfer Agreement and a Joint Powers Agreement. This came two months after Malibu attempted to have the LACOE committee consider its original petition, a position that was then reversed during an August LACOE meeting.
The Malibu and SMMUSD unification sub-committees had hoped to have finished the approval of a completed unification package by the end of October. The SMMUSD Board of Education held a discussion item on the matter during an October 15 meeting, ultimately deciding more discussion was needed, which SMMUSD Board Vice President and unification sub-committee member Jon Kean said was about getting things "right."
In a Monday statement, Kean said the process requires time to "hear the concerns and incorporate valid suggestions" from district employees, address comments of students and their families, and "provide in-depth details of the legal and practical ramifications to both communities of this historic process."
"SMMUSD will not place artificial obstacles or random dates as deterrents in finalizing these agreements in a rigorous manner," Kean said. "What some might see as a short delay, others will see as due diligence, proper governance, and a thorough attention to details. We are at the doorstep of completing this arduous process, which was once thought to be impossible. The District will continue to place the needs of all students as our timeline."
The LACOE committee will consider the 2017 petition with the updated feasibility study at two upcoming public hearings, one scheduled for November 8 in the SMMUSD District Office Board Room, and another for November 13 at Malibu High School.
thomas@smdp.com
