Meeting Expected Soon on Independent Malibu School District

A long-awaited meeting between the Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District, the city of Malibu and others over the possibility of an independent Malibu school district could happen in June, Malibu's mayor said this week.

“I’ve already been approached by the superintendent and we are setting up a meeting within the next few weeks to start this process to see if all the interested parties can get together and reach an agreement,” Mayor Laura Zahn Rosenthal said during the council's regular meeting on Monday.

During its , the SMMUSD school board agreed to meet with representatives from the cities of Malibu and Santa Monica, the school district, the unions, parent groups and Los Angeles county.

The mayor praised board of education for agreeing to meet and work on moving forward with studies to determine if the separated school districts could be financially independent.

The district's Chief Financial Officer Jan Maez gave a presentation on May 3 showing that two separate school districts in Malibu and Santa Monica could be viable financially based on preliminary and unofficial estimates.

Maez outlined several possibilities going forward, including the preparation of a a feasibility study on state criteria for "unification," the term used by education officials for the process to separate school districts. ()