Santa Monica, Malibu leaders agree on plans to split school district

The Malibu City Council on Monday unanimously approved agreements that would lay the foundation to separate the city’s schools from the Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District.

The vote, along with last week’s approval from the Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District board, is a significant step forward in a years-long effort to split the westside district of 8,600 students.

The three agreements outline how the two new districts would share property tax revenue, divide existing resources and create a group of stakeholders to oversee the transition.

About two dozen parents, community members and students urged the council to approve the proposal during Monday’s meeting.

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“I've reviewed the agreements. They are not perfect,” Malibu Elementary School PTA President Mark DiPaola said. “They are as good as we're ever going to get. And they're on the table. They're ready for us now.”

Malibu and district leaders said the creation of the two new school districts will require additional action from an outside body, for example the California Legislature or the state Board of Education.

“It’s not going to happen next year or the year after this,” Malibu City Councilmember Bruce Silverstein said. “It’s going to be a while, but the sooner it can get done, the better, and we can start tonight.”

The origin of an unprecedented split

The creation of the Santa Monica-Malibu School District in 1875 predates the incorporation of either community. Santa Monica became a city in 1886 and Malibu incorporated in 1992.

For more than a decade, Malibu schools advocates, including parents and politicians, have argued that local control would better serve students.

While the name of the process, “unification,” may seem counterintuitive, it refers to the creation of a new “unified” Malibu school district.

“We have the opportunity to build a program here that can draw young families to our community by creating an educational system that is progressive and suits the unique needs of our evolving world,” said Dana, a parent and Malibu resident who spoke at Monday’s meeting.

Why has the split been divisive?

Santa Monica community members previously have raised concerns the split would leave the community’s schools with fewer resources and a higher-need population of students. While the proportion of low-income students in Santa Monica-Malibu Schools, about 33%, is less than half of the rate in the county overall, a greater share attends schools in Santa Monica compared to Malibu.

“We wanted the services to be comparable, the educational pathways to be comparable — what the children receive,” Santa-Monica Malibu Unified Board Member Jon Kean said.

Under the agreements, Santa Monica students who currently attend Malibu schools on permits could continue to do so.

It’s not yet clear how the split could affect the employment of the district’s 1,400 teachers, support staff and other employees.

“Many significant questions remain,” said Claudia Bautista-Nicholas, president of the Santa Monica Malibu Classroom Teachers Association, at the district’s December board meeting. “One of our greatest concerns is the ongoing decline in enrollment in both cities. We know that declining enrollment inevitably leads to reductions in staffing and ultimately layoffs.”

Funding Santa Monica and Malibu schools

One of the biggest sticking points in the mediation among stakeholders is how the two proposed districts would be funded because Santa Monica-Malibu Unified’s budget is more closely tied to local property taxes than most school districts in the state.

California distributes money to the vast majority of school districts based on a funding formula that accounts for several factors, including how many low-income students are enrolled.

Santa Monica-Malibu Unified, however, is a less common “basic aid” district, where local property tax revenue (from Malibu and Santa Monica combined) provides more money than the state funding formula.

“If Santa Monica … were only to receive the [city of] Santa Monica property taxes, we would not have enough revenue to operate,” Board Member Jon Keane said.

Kean served on a subcommittee that along with Malibu stakeholders and a mediator, started meeting in 2022.

The proposed deal would have the new districts share revenue under specific circumstances through 2042 in a process overseen by L.A. County. For example, Santa Monica Unified is guaranteed an annual operating revenue growth of 4%. If the district’s property tax revenue does not support that increase, the county would use Malibu revenue to fill in the gap.

Kean said one of the challenges is that no other basic aid school district ever has split.

“ We're doing something brand new,” Kean said. “We need protections.”