SMMUSD May Disallow Kids From Over The Hill – Parents Worry It Will Choke Malibu School District
Written by 991KBU on February 17, 2020
Malibu’s schools may soon be Malibu-only … with no almost kids admitted from outside the exact Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District boundary.
That would put an end to kids from over the hill … places like Monte Nido or Seminole Hot Springs … from attending Malibu schools.
And it would cut the dwindling Malibu school population even further.
The problem … says the district … is that it no longer gets money from Sacramento for educating kids from outside the district.
Malibu parent Anne Shurgot tells KBUU News … that the district can no longer rely on state money sent back to Malibu on a per-student basis.
SCHOOL SHURGOT 1:18
ANNE SHURGOT: “With the district shifting from a state aid district to a basic aid district … which is strictly community funded … (that) means we are in a rather large budget deficit.
“We didn’t really know what that means … but we have heard the term ‘painful realignment.’
“And since that time … the monthparents have been made aware that the staff at Santa Monica Malibu USD is recommending a plan to the Board of Education to largely restrict or deny inter-district permits for students.”
REPORTER: “And what will be the effect of that be … on the Malibu school census?”
ANNE SHURGOT: “The proposed language is a little bit unclear to me…
“But what I think we have been ultimately told is that Malibu’s current affordable neighborhoods … the places is that families have moved (to) … the places that newcomer families choose to live in because they get a house for $1 million and now $3 million… Those neighborhoods will be cut out. And essentially Malibu will not have a source of students for children to bring our numbers back up to the 1500 that we need to become our own district.”
Malibu school parent Anne Shurgot.
The proposal being discussed would ban kids from attending Malibu schools unless they live within the exact district boundaries … or have parents working for the City of Malibu.
It’s a complicated issue.
Earlier … we reported that the local school district had made the decision to become a so-called “basic aid” school district … where only local tax revenues fund local schools.
A spokeswoman for the district tells us … the district had no choice in the matter.
Shurgot is asking parents who are concerned about the issue to attend the school board meeting this Thursday evening at the Santa Monica headquarters … on Olympic Boulevard at 16th Street … in Santa Monica.
