By Daily Press staff
After months of strategizing, combing neighborhoods for signatures and pushing their message in the local press, a powerful group of school parents announced Thursday it may drop its bid for an amendment to the city charter.
Leaders from the Community for Excellent Public Schools said they were heartened by a compromise reached Wednesday by school and city officials that would give the struggling school district at least $6 million a year for the next five years.
The negotiations were made more urgent by the proposed charter amendment, which also would guarantee schools at least $6 million a year. But it had more aggressive triggers to increase funding and would have lasted indefinitely.
After negotiating the compromise with City Manager Susan McCarthy, schools superintendent John Deasy urged CEPS members to support the compromise and drop the charter amendment. He said if the issue went to the polls, it threatened to alienate City Hall from the school district.
3EF,CEPS co-chair Shari Davis said her group held a special meeting at 9 p.m. Wednesday to discuss how to proceed. Though a prepared statement said CEPS would not “feel the need” to pursue the charter amendment if the school board and the City Council both approve the compromise, Davis declined to get into the details.
“It is appropriate to wait and see what the votes are,” said Davis, adding the group would have more to say after Tuesday’s council meeting. “We took into consideration that there was a great deal of effort that went into working out the details of the agreement. We took into consideration all the effort of the volunteers that worked so hard to help us collect those 15,000 signatures. We took into consideration what our mission is at CEPS — and we’re proud that we were able to bring this issue to the forefront.”
— John Wood
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on May 7, 2004. Read the original PDF.