Pt Dume Parents Applaud Bringing Cabrillo Kids There

Standing room only last night … an overflow crowd of at the Point Dume Marine Science Elementary School.

Reporter Sam Hall Kaplan … says the crowd was apparently convinced.

District Superintendent Ben Drati and School Board member Craig Foster enthusiastically the proposed realignment of Malibu Schools.

The plan would transfer the Cabrillo Elementary students body and teachers to the Pt. Dume schoolyard.

The superintendent is confident Point Dume can comfortably accommodate the shift … as the Point school is expected to continue losing enrollment in what has become a periodic cycle for it and other Malibu schools.

Foster called the cycle fortuitous … because it would give the district some wiggle room to build a 21st century junior high school at the Cabrillo site … and a new Malibu High School.

Teaching is changing … and so must also change … the physical classroom.

The packed auditorium of about 150 applauded loudly as a parade of parents praised the prospects of the new education program and the new facilities.

Although the timing for implementing the realignment … all of  a sudden … was questioned by a few. 

A school bond to cover the new construction … Foster said that unlike past funding schemes controlled and mostly consumed by Santa Monica … this one would be “100 per cent”  controlled by Malibu … to issue and to administer.  

There will be another meeting tonight at the Point Dume School, this one for neighbors and residents to talk about traffic and other neighborhood impacts.

It promises to be not as a friendly.

That meeting is at 7 tonight at the Point Dume School.

That report from KBUU’s Sam Hall Kaplan.