School Board OKs Malibu High School : Education: Panel members, who voted unanimously to create the new school, urge reconciliation among parents. But some from Santa Monica vow to fight.

While Malibu parents rejoice, Santa Monica parents mourn--and plot.

The opposite moods are the result of the Santa Monica-Malibu school board’s decision Monday to open a high school in Malibu, an issue that has divided the district for months and is likely to continue to do so.

“You have us between a rock and a hard place,” board member Peggy Lyons said Monday night to the overflow audience of 150 parents and students. “There isn’t anything we can do tonight that’ll make both sides happy.”

She added that Malibu’s secession from the district, which some Malibu parents had threatened, would be worse than the decision to open another school. She urged the Malibu parents sitting on one side of the room, and the Santa Monica parents on the other, to reconcile.

But there is no truce in sight. The unanimous board vote drew a standing ovation from the Malibu side of the room and grim silence on the Santa Monica side. Santa Monica parents, wearing black armbands, vowed afterward to continue fighting through the legal system or the ballot box.

The high school is scheduled to open in 1992 at the little used Malibu Park Middle School near Zuma Beach, with up to 90 freshmen. Upper grades would be added one year at a time. Enrollment would be open to students throughout the district.

Before approving the school, the board adopted some revisions to the original plan in response to criticism raised by Santa Monica residents. But opponents of the new school dismissed the changes as window dressing. Among the revisions was a requirement that enrollment be limited to 360, instead of 480 and that financial safeguards be implemented to prevent the new school from being a drain on the district’s general fund.

The district projects costs for the school at $30,000 for the first year and $92,800 a year once it is in full operation.

The school will not be a “college preparatory magnet,” as originally proposed. Although a formal statement of the school’s mission will not be issued for nearly a year, school district officials envision it as an innovative institution that will be able to experiment with teaching styles. Because of its small size, it would not have the array of classes and extracurricular activities of Santa Monica High, which has 2,649 students.

The idea for the school arose two years ago from Malibu parents’ concerns about the one-hour commute to Santa Monica High, the district’s only high school, and the stream of Malibu children leaving the district for private schools. A study committee, mostly made of Malibu residents, came up with the high school plan as a solution.

Santa Monica residents, however, said that the district is already burdened with limited money and problems at Santa Monica High, nicknamed Samohi. They feared that Malibu High would be an elite academy that would draw resources and many of the best students from the larger school.

Greg Outwater, student board member whose vote is only advisory, voted against the plan. He said students from both cities say that “Samohi is an incredible experience, culturally,” that cannot be replicated at Malibu High.

But other board members said a smaller school was an educationally sound option for students throughout the district. They said that critics were casting them as scapegoats for the insufficient funding from the state, with board vice president Connie Jenkins saying that much of the rift was “fighting over a shrinking pie.”

Board member Mary Kay Kamath noted that the board must serve all students in the district, and “that includes geographical minorities.”

Board member Lyons said that students in Malibu--particularly white students--are leaving the district at a faster rate than those in Santa Monica. Of the several problems facing the district, “the easiest thing to plug up now is the defection from Malibu.”

Santa Monica City Councilman Tony Vazquez, acknowledging that the outcome of the vote was no surprise, urged the board to adopt a series of specific measures to ensure that Santa Monica High did not suffer. Among the problems at the Santa Monica school that need attention, he said, are the high dropout rate among minority students, large classes and insufficient bilingual classes and counseling for Latino students.

After the meeting, Vazquez said that Latino parents are still generally opposed to Malibu High, and he questioned whether it could attract enough minority students to be integrated.

Santa Monica residents said the board’s decision defied economics and was based on skewed information. They said they are considering various challenges to the school, including lawsuits based on civil rights, budgetary and procedural grounds, moves to unseat board members in next year’s election, and removing Supt. Eugene Tucker.

“We shall return,” Jean Gebman, one of the opponents, said after the vote.

Gebman said that because of its small size and limited programs, Malibu High may not be a draw for any parents, private school or otherwise. “Who wins? Whatever that school is out there, only a few parents (benefit),” he said.

Malibu parents are not entirely happy, either, with the 360-student enrollment ceiling. A year ago, it had been envisioned with 600 students, but the subsequent reductions were made to try to limit the drain on Santa Monica High.

But Malibu parent Beverly Hammond said 360 is “overly restrictive.”

‘We hope the school district will be flexible. We don’t want them establishing something so narrow that it defeats itself,” she said.

The talk of seceding from the district is now on hold, but could be revived if opponents raise “unsurmountable obstacles to establishing the school,” Hammond said.

“I just wish they (Santa Monica parents) would wait to see what does happen, if anything, to affect Santa Monica High.”