Malibu Schools Short $61,000 For Arts Programs, But Scrape Together Science Funding
Written by 991KBU on August 12, 2020
Parents at the four Malibu public schools have together raised 38 thousand dollars for student enrichment programs … leaving a huge gap that has been partially filled in by the Malibu Foundation.
The latest data from the school district shows that the Foundation will make a one-time donation of 160 thousand dollars to the Malibu schools.
And 25 thousand dollars was contributed to the schools by the Boys And Girls Club of Malibu.
That funds will go to Malibu and John Webster elementary schools … h
The emergency grant will allow the continuation of a STEM program in this year’s curriculum .
Also … to continue paying 12 instructional aides across the schools.
But the fund raising drive has fallen short by nearly 62 thousand dollars needed to pay for arts teachers.
The Santa Monica-Malibu school board meets Thursday to re-tune its budget for the next year.
The budget revision for the coming school year budget calls for a 1.3 million dollar increase in expenditure due to COVID-related spending.
About 500 thousand dollars in that cost is directly tied to COVID 9 …things like cleaning offices and schools.
But it will cost 800 thousand dollars to add two days of teacher training before kids start their schoolwork on computers.
Revenues will be nearly 600 thousand dollars higher than originally estimated … but that means another 700 thousand dollars will have to be taken from a dwindling cash reserve.
The bank account now stands at about 14.6 million dollars.
It would drop to 6.8 million … in round numbers.
Back to the teacher training … the contract agreed to by the district and the teachers union requires adequate trainign on new curriculum or teaching methods.
The teachers say they need five days to get ready for this coming fall semester.
That means the start of the school year …. distance learnign … will bepusged back from Thursday August 0th to Monday August 24th …
And two days will be added to the school calendar in June … under the superintendent’s plan.
All this has to be approved by the school board … which meets at 5:45 tomorrow night on the Zoom platform.
