Peninsula School Split Hits Roadblock

A county education committee on Wednesday rejected a proposal to split the Palos Verdes Peninsula Unified School District, dealing a severe setback to a group of parents who hope to establish a separate system on the east side of the peninsula.

But Ted Gibbs, a spokesman for the East Peninsula Education Council, vowed that the secessionist group will carry the fight to the state Board of Education, which is expected to make the final decision this fall. In the meantime, he said, the group will stand firm on its legal efforts to prevent the district from closing Miraleste High School.

Supt. Jack Price hailed the 7-1 vote by the county Committee on School District Organization as a victory for residents who favor preserving a single school system. At the same time, he urged an end to the secession effort, which was sparked last November when trustees voted to close Miraleste, the smallest of the 9,800-student district’s three high schools, in an effort to cut operating expenses.

“I would hope that the people on the east side will reconsider their position,� he said. “Instead of fighting among ourselves, we should be devoting our time and money to educating children on the entire peninsula.�

‘Mend Wounds’

Price said trustees are willing to consider some concrete proposals to “mend the district’s wounds� and to help “satisfy the real concerns that the east-side people have about educating their children.�

One proposal that will be taken up by the school board Monday night, he said, is to establish an intermediate school on the closed Miraleste Elementary campus, across the street from the high school. The new school would educate youngsters in grades six through eight, while the earlier grades would continue on the Mira Catalina campus on the east side.

“I think the idea has real possibilities,� Price said. “Children on the extreme east side would not have to commute to schools on the west side until they reached the high school level.�

When the trustees voted to close Miraleste Elementary, they planned to send all east-side students to west-side campuses after fifth grade.

Gibbs said the east-side group would be interested in hearing more about the proposal, “but it is certainly not an acceptable alternative� to keeping Miraleste open as a high school.

The council has succeeded so far in blocking the district’s plan to shut down Miraleste High at the end of the school year. Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Miriam Vogel, in response to a lawsuit filed by the parents group, ruled in May that the district, before it can close Miraleste High, must consider possible environmental effects from a series of school closures on the east side.

The district has appealed and hopes to get a court order overturning Vogel’s ruling by the end of this month.

The county committee, which reviews proposals to change existing school boundaries, generally found no fault with the east-side group’s overall plan for setting up a new district. It found, however, that the educational program in the existing district would be adversely affected by the division of school property.

Five of the district’s six surplus schools, closed over the past decade as enrollment declined, are in the proposed new district east of Crenshaw Boulevard. Loss of those properties, along with warehouse facilities on Crest Road, would further aggravate the existing district’s financial problems, the committee concluded.

Gibbs acknowledged that the committee’s “astounding and disappointing� decision makes it a lot tougher for the secessionists at the state level.