SM School Official Apologizes For Failing To Send Anti-Malibu Mail, But Not For Anti-Malibu Message
Written by 991KBU on April 14, 2021
Malibu meets tonight on the Internet … to make plans for Saturday’s divorce court hearing.
And on the other side of the table … Santa Monica is getting ready too.
In the middle .. .the Santa Monica Malibu School District is actively working on one side …
The district is using money from Malibu … staff paid for by Malibu … to campaign against Malibu.
It has produced an easy to use form … that has been mailed to all 19 thousand households with kids in school.
The form is an internet postcard … to go to the county judges… a push-poll of sorts.
Parents are given several options to express their opposition to an independent school district.
No option is given … the school district does not give the option … of supporting the school district.
This has enraged some Malibu parents.
Writes one … “I expressed my fury that it was being circulated, and argued that it demonstrated everything that was wrong with being tied to SMMUSD. Santa Monica is playing a dirty game and as always, it’s all about the money.“
A spokeswoman for the Santa Monica school district defends the one sided campaign.
Gail Pinsker … whose salary is partly paid by Malibu taxpayers … tells KBUU that the school district ius justified in its campaign.
Quote: “the City of Malibu had been recruiting support for the April 17th meeting.
“The district is doing the same.”
But the district represents people on bothsides of the issue … but has done political campaigning opposed to one side.
We have asked board president Jon Kean … school superintendent Ben Drati … and anyone at the district for their comment on this.
None has been offered.
Santa Monica continues that battle … both inside and outside our joint school district.
Former Santa Monica mayor Ted Winterer wrote an open letter to Santa Monica voters …. urging them to oppose the Malibu petition.
He wrote … quote … “the current Malibu proposal, which will be considered April 17th, skews unjustly in favor of a Malibu district.
“If implemented it would require immediate teacher layoffs and cuts to services and programs in the new Santa Monica school system.
“And within five years Malibu would be spending $20,000 more per pupil annually than Santa Monica.”
Winterer goes on to say the overwhelming majority of low-income students enrolled at SMMUSD attend schools in Santa Monica … and would thus be impacted by the budget cuts to a new Santa Monica district.
He asks … “at a time when the COVID pandemic has profoundly exacerbated the economic and class inequities in our society, does a plan to cut the school funding for these kids sound like social justice?”
Winterer’s comments were printed in a letter to the Santa Monica newspapers … but not Malibu.
