School board OKs tentative deal with teachers
By GENEVA WHITMARSH Daily Press Staff Writer
DISTRICT HEADQUARTERS — If students get busted with drugs or alcohol this year, they may not face mandatory exile to another school, as was the case in years past.
The Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District board this week tweaked its existing controlled substances policy to make the subsequent transfer to another campus following a violation optional rather than mandatory.
A group of Malibu parents had actively lobbied the board to change its policy after eight Malibu students were found drunk at their prom last spring. As a result, they were forced to attend Santa Monica High School for the remainder of the school year.
Parents and some principals argued that such mandatory transfers disrupt staff and harm students who might already be at risk for academic failure.
Among the concerns: ■ Sudden, unanticipated transfer of students does not provide time for the receiving school to prepare an equivalent academic program or become familiar with the history and needs of the student. ■ Students who transfer in the later part of one semester and return to their home school after the following semester have entered into two disruptive semesters. ■ Transferred students who use public or district transportation cannot stay after school for remedial or support groups. ■ Parents of transferred students find it harder to establish a working relationship and keep in touch with the new set of teachers who are located in another city.
Board members approved, per the recommendation, changing the current wording of “shall” to “may,” and allowing principals to look at violations on a case-by-case basis.
The existing policy also was revamped to require any student found violating the substance policy to complete 24 hours of substance abuse counseling, perform 40 hours of community service and, if deemed necessary, participate in a 12-step program. The child’s parents must also attend counseling.
If a student is found to have committed a second offense, the principal “shall recommend that the student be expelled from the district.”
Board members also discussed the possibility of a full-time on-campus suspension center for five-day suspensions.
“Somewhere along the line we need to make sure they’re on campus,” said school board member Maria Leon- Vazquez. “Maybe they’re isolated somewhere, but they’re doing their work on campus.”
School officials, however, questioned whether there are adequate resources for such a center. For example, on-campus suspensions would require additional staff to supervise the students.
“If we don’t have the resources, we need to look at what it’s going to take and what the cost is to do something like that,” Leon-Vazquez said. “I don’t want it to just sit there.”
The revamped policy was scheduled to be printed Friday and be distributed to students, parents and staff at the start of the upcoming school year, which begins Sept. 8.
In other business, the school board recommended approving the tentative agreement between local teachers and school officials. The agreement, reached in July, is set to be voted on by members of the district’s Classroom Teacher’s Association next month and will cover the period 2003-04 through 2004-05.
The contract scales back health care benefits and provides for a 1 percent pay increase. The health care changes are expected to save the cash-strapped school district more than $500,000 a year and help curtail future escalating medical costs. According to the deal, single teachers with the most expensive PPO plan will pay for the portion of their coverage that exceeds the basic HMO plan. Families and couples already had to pay that difference.
Board members also recognized Mark Kelly as the new principal of Malibu High School. Also receiving acknowledgment at the meeting were Malibu High School assistant principals Suzanne Webb- Monastero and Matthew Horvath, Santa Monica High School’s “A” House principal, Wendy Wax Gellis, and “I” House principal Eva Mayoral.
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on August 21, 2004. Read the original PDF.