By Jonathan Friedman
Lookout Staff

April 29, 2010 --A group of parents at Point Dume Marine Science Elementary School (PDMSS) is attempting to gain charter status for the Malibu school for the 2011-12 school year. With this designation, a PDMSS Board consisting of parents, at-large community members and possibly teachers would be in charge of school finances, curriculum and most other features currently run by the Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District (SMMUSD). The SMMUSD would only remain in a monitoring role.

PDMSS parents Robyn Ross and Ali Thonson, who are leading the effort, hope to bring a petition to the Board of Education by September. It would lay out the financial and curriculum plans as well as give evidence to the feasibility of the school being able to operate on its own. The parents have hired a budget writer from San Francisco to help them with the financial analysis. The Board would have 60 days to make a decision. If it rejected the petition, the parents could appeal to the Los Angeles County Office of Education (LACOE). A rejection there could be appealed to the State Board of Education.

If the approval comes from LACOE or the State, those entities, rather than the SMMUSD, would be in charge of monitoring. A PDMSS charter school would be audited twice per year to prove it is financially fit.

The parents have already cleared one hurdle by obtaining the support of all 11 school teachers. That does not necessarily mean the instructors plan to teach there if it became a charter school, but rather that they believe it is OK for PDMSS to go down that route. Majority teacher support is required for a school to become a charter.

As a charter school, PDMSS would still have to abide by State education standards, including STAR testing. It would receive funding from Sacramento based on daily attendance. All money raised through donations would stay at the school. It would no longer have to commit 15 percent of its earnings to the SMMUSD’s equity fund. Ross said that was not a reason for the charter pursuit.

“That is not an issue at all,” she said. “And it hasn’t been for years. We have always done a significant amount of fundraising and we’ve had to do that for many years in order to alleviate the effects of the budget cuts.”

Ross and Thonson began studying the charter process late last year for two reasons – a fear the school was in danger of closing because of its decreasing population and because of the State’s financial crisis.

Although Ross and Thonson both said in interviews that the State’s budget problems meant PDMSS must be in charge of its own finances to maintain the school’s high-achieving status, neither said the District has been mismanaging the school. They also declined to say specifically that PDMSS stakeholders would do a better job running the school, but they both said several times that

independence is needed to maintain PDMSS’ educational excellence.

As for the fear the school could close, it remains an issue of debate how realistic of a possibility that is.

“We fear that the school closure is imminent,” Ross said. “We know that it’s not going to happen next year, but we do think that by the following year it could. It’s being talked about at all levels. If you look at the District statistics on declining enrollment, the writing’s on the wall.”

Thonson said Superintendent Tim Cuneo told attendees at a meeting on District budget matters earlier this year at Malibu High School that closing one of Malibu’s elementary schools for the 2011-12 school year is on the table. With PDMSS being the smallest in terms of population, she said it is the likely candidate. Cuneo said this week he did not recall his exact words from that meeting.

“I probably said I can’t predict the future if things financially get worse than they are,” Cuneo said. “I would think (in that situation) the Board and I would be studying consolidation of schools and a variety of other things. But those are huge steps to take, and it takes a long time to think them through and the impact it would have on a child’s education.”

He continued, “There has been no discussion about this (PDMSS closure). There is a rumor about that, but the Board hasn’t had a discussion about that, nor has that come up during any of the budget discussions.”

There are currently 264 students attending PDMSS. District projections have the number dwindling to 215 by 2015. Cuneo said there is no specific maximum number of students a school must have to remain open. A declining area youth population forced PDMSS to close in 1980. It reopened in 1996.

Approximately 120 parents attended a meeting hosted by Ross and Thonson about the charter process last week. The two said there was no vocal opposition, and most parents appeared to be excited and wanted to know how they could help. A group of parents also briefly met with Cuneo last week. Ross and Thonson described the meeting as “positive.” Another meeting will happen again soon, with Board members invited.

Cuneo said this week he was surprised to hear PDMSS wanted to become a charter school because nearly all charter applications he is familiar with are from parents of students at low-achieving schools, with one exception being a San Mateo County school that was geographically distant from the rest of the District. Thonson said through her research, she learned about Meadows School in the Conejo Valley, a high-achieving school that was forced to close because of declining enrollment. It later opened as a charter.

When asked whether he could support this process, Cuneo said, “I don’t know enough about what they want to do yet to form an opinion.”