State School Board Delays Decision on P.V. District

SACRAMENTO — Both sides in a pitched battle over splitting the Palos Verdes Peninsula Unified School District expressed a mixture of disappointment and hope over a State Board of Education vote that fell short of resolving the matter.

The 11-member state board, which needed six votes to make a decision, lined up 5-3 against the East Peninsula Education Council’s effort to let voters decide whether to form a new district. Two seats on the state panel are vacant and David T. Romero was not present because of an emergency.

Pleased by 5 Votes

Members of the Palos Verdes school board said Friday they could taste victory but lambasted their opponents for waging a “dirty” campaign that they had hoped to see ended.

“We are pleased to get five votes, but we’d like to have put it to rest. It is very unfortunate that this dirty campaign they are waging has dissolved from issues to personal attacks,” said Supt. Jack Price.

Palos Verdes board members took heart in the near-victory, and members of the parents’ group said they were pleased to have two more months to “expose the lies” that led the board to vote against them.

“The additional time will allow us to bring further evidence to the board on a number of important matters we think the other side misrepresented,” and to inform new members of the board on the issue, said Ted Gibbs, spokesman for the education council.

“We are disappointed there was no final decision but even more disappointed that we did not get a decision in our favor. There will be a destruction of education for East Peninsula children” because of the indecision, he said.

The board will vote again at its September meeting, when two new members should be seated. Both sides will have an opportunity to reargue their cases.

The parents’ group says the school district has systematically shortchanged the east side of the peninsula, closing a number of schools there while keeping open schools on the west side, which has most of the population. School district officials assert that the closings are justified by declining enrollment and a budget crunch.

The acrimony between the sides at a hearing on Thursday spilled over into harsh words between board members after its vote.

The parents began their fight in 1987, when the district proposed closing Miraleste High School on the east side because of declining enrollment. Members vowed Friday to continue that fight, even if they lose in September, by appealing through the courts or to the Legislature.

The secessionist group says the district’s efforts to shut Miraleste is a slap in the face to east side parents, whose high school children will have to commute to the west side if the school is closed. They complain that only one east side Palos Verdes school board member has been elected in the 20-year history of the district and said Friday that the board has ulterior motives in closing Miraleste.

Science Fiction Analogy

“This is in a sense like the old science fiction movie ‘Invasion of the Body Snatchers’--they just want our children’s bodies. The other major purpose is to sell school sites,” Gibbs said in an interview Friday.

Representatives of the school board said their offer to turn Miraleste--which now serves grades seven through 12--into an intermediate school is proof that they want to keep both the school and east side students there.

“The board has made an offer to put the intermediate school there. We have never said we would sell the site,” Price said in an interview Friday.

Education council supporters rejected the intermediate school solution in February when they discovered that the district had held talks with Marymount College about allowing it to use buildings at Miraleste. No agreement with Marymount has been made.

Letter of Support

Most of the 40 or 50 people attending the Friday vote were wearing lapel buttons favoring the secessionist group, but State Board of Education President Francis Laufenberg introduced a letter that was identified as being signed by 728 east side parents who want to remain part of the district. The letter was submitted by Alana Wallace, an elementary classroom aide for the district and resident of the east side.

The 728 parents “feel that educationally our best needs would be served by one district,” Wallace said. She said east side opponents of secession have been shut out of the debate by the council.

Wallace said EPEC members had intimidated their east side opponents with slashed tires, eggs thrown at houses and “verbal accusations that you are a nobody.”

The friction in Palos Verdes surfaced in Sacramento on Friday. There were heated exchanges between the factions outside the board meeting as each side debated the vote, with members from opposing sides interrupting conversations with insults.

When an anti-secessionist told education council member Dawn Henry to “kiss off,” Henry shot back to the man as he walked away: “You have a dirty mouth.”

Board Disagreement

The state board took no testimony Friday, but exchanges among some members were almost as acrimonious. Member Joseph D. Carrabino, who voted with the parents’ council, traded barbs with Palos Verdes district supporter Kenneth L. Peters.

Carrabino, in making a motion to push the vote back to September to gather more evidence, said, “I would like to see (East Peninsula Education Council) get their fair shake.” He added that the interests of the minority living on the east side of the peninsula had not been adequately served.

But Peters countered heatedly, “How can we possibly get any more information?” and accused Carrabino of making a number of careless statements and “a snap judgment.”

The deep divisions in the Palos Verdes district will probably continue well beyond September, even if the State Board of Education makes a decision at that time.

“We will be working in all three branches of the government. We have tried the executive,” said Gibbs. “But if we don’t win here, we will work through the judiciary and Legislature to achieve the objectives to which we are entitled.” He would not expand on the parents’ strategy.

No Effect on Miraleste

The state board decision will apparently have no effect on the status of Miraleste High, according to Charles Greenberg, an attorney for the school district. Greenberg said that under a court order overturning a 1987 decision to close the school, Miraleste will remain a high school for the term that starts in the fall.

The court order required the district to produce an environmental impact report on the cumulative effect of school closings and probable future closings throughout the district.

“The district is now preparing an environmental report to comply with the court’s ruling,” Greenberg said. “Once that report is completed, then the board will make a decision whether or not to close Miraleste.”

Steven Gerhardt, project manager for the Michael Brandman Associates consulting firm, which is preparing the report, said a draft version will not be released for more than a month.

Report Timetable

Once the draft report is out, the public has 45 days to comment. Public comments must be analyzed and mitigation measures proposed before the school board can act.

Greenberg said the timing would prevent any action to close Miraleste before the commencement of the new school year.

The move to split the district has been prompted, in part, by dwindling enrollment. In 1976, the district’s enrollment peaked at 17,742 students, but it has declined since to about 9,300.

The current district includes Rolling Hills, Rolling Hills Estates, Rancho Palos Verdes and Palos Verdes Estates. The proposed eastern district would have about 1,700 students and would include all of Rolling Hills, the eastern side of Rancho Palos Verdes and a portion of Rolling Hills Estates.