Will Malibu Leave SMMUSD? Proposal Could Move Forward This Month

MALIBU, CA — The Los Angeles County Office of Education recommended that the County Committee on School District Organization move forward Malibu's petition to split the Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District into two unique districts, despite finding significant shortcomings in the petition and financial concerns, according to a report from LACOE.

The preliminary report comes as Malibu and Santa Monica constituents prepare for the next major move in the decade long debate: a hearing on Sept. 18 before the County Committee. The hearing is the first public step in months for the highly contentious split that has been in the works for decades.

The LACOE Division of Business Advisory Services wrote in a preliminary report Thursday that the Malibu petition does not sufficiently meet eight of nine conditions the County Committee will use to evaluate the proposal.

Even still, the division has recommended that come Sept. 18, the County Committee should move the petition forward to its next phase: regular review. Approving the petition for regular review will allow the County Committee to further review and investigate the proposal, working with both Santa Monica and Malibu to make a decision.

The report displays concern over Malibu's enrollment potential being too low, claims that the split is necessary for Malibu community identity, the split's potential to create state costs, potential disruption to educational programs and a possible shift in racial/ethnic enrollment demographics. But the key concern both in the report is finances: will Malibu's split cause financial trouble for students and the city of Santa Monica, and will it cost the state?

The division said in the report that Malibu has not sufficiently proven the split will be financially equitable, or that it will not cause any increase in school housing costs or affect the financial status of the resultant districts.

Furthermore, the report concluded that the proposed split would cause significant financial harm to a resultant Santa Monica school district.

"The funding disparities between the two districts would be stark, and the losses that would be experienced by the remaining Santa Monica USD would undoubtedly affect the educational programs currently being offered to students within the current Santa Monica-Malibu USD," LACOE wrote in the report.

Background

Malibu City Council has been making efforts to unify the district since 2011. The petition on the table today was first brought to LACOE in 2017, and has been workshopped through negotiations between Malibu and Santa Monica.

"Everybody agrees that there should be two school districts," said Craig Foster, the sole Malibu representative on the SMMUSD board.

Foster told Patch that the key reasons for the split are the two cities' geographic separation, Santa Monica's urban setting versus Malibu's more rural setting and Santa Monica's majority control of the board.

The County Committee held its first public hearing on April 17, which had over 300 attendees, according to the report.

The split is now generally stalled over financial terms. A key component here is property taxes: the Los Angeles Times reported that the state decides a district's financial need based partially on a property tax threshold. If a district does not meet the property tax threshold, the state will make up the difference. If a district does meet the threshold, it will not need any state funding and can use any excess in property taxes.

SMMUSD is one of Los Angeles County's two districts that meets this threshold, the LA Times reported, and the other is Beverly Hills. Should Malibu secede, Santa Monica may struggle to keep this status and thus require additional state funding while Malibu will continue to be above the threshold.

Other factors that affect a school's funding are average daily attendance and unduplicated pupil percentage, or the number of students who are eligible for additional funding including students from low-income families, English learners or foster youth. The report finds that the proposed split would result in Santa Monica's funding per average daily attendance to drop 21.52 percent from the current school board configuration, while Malibu's would be higher than the current combined school district.

The split would cause Santa Monica an increase in funding needed for unduplicated pupil percentage, but decrease the amount Malibu needs to allocate for these students. Santa Monica would also have less property tax revenue working toward its funding, which would push it closer to the state funding threshold.

"Based on the financial impact, it would be difficult to argue that the district, and more importantly the students, of the remaining Santa Monica USD would not be harmed by the precipitous drop in per-ADA revenue," LACOE wrote in the report.

Foster said Malibu has always prioritized financially supporting Santa Monica through the split by making up any resource loss for many years. The district's concern, according to the report, is that after this Malibu assistance is complete, Santa Monica will suffer major financial hardship.

Video

The contentious debate over whether Santa Monica and Malibu should have distinct school boards heated up mid-August when the SMMUSD released a video calling on its constituents to oppose Malibu's efforts to unify.

"The Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District is committed to the growth and well being of all its students, whether they go to school in Malibu or Santa Monica. Malibu proposes to split the district in a way that undermined that long-standing commitment and practice," the board said in the video.

The video alleges the split will create a resource gap that will result in cuts to programs for vulnerable students, which Malibu council members said is not true given state and federal protections for funding programs to benefit vulnerable students.

The issue of race and equity has also found its way in this debate, as Santa Monica's residents are far more racially and ethnically diverse than Malibu's.

Foster said the SMMUSD board did not vote on the video. He believes the video has irreparably changed the tone of the negotiation.

"There's no going back from this," Foster said. "There's just no way in heck Malibu parents will ever feel comfortable in the school district again if this is how the folks in Santa Monica think of them."

"It's a cynical manipulation of public opinion," he added.

Editor's Note: This story was updated at 11:35 a.m. with additional information throughout.