Peninsula Board Halts Talks, Leaves Decision on School Split to State

The stage has been set for a second showdown in Sacramento between the Palos Verdes Peninsula Unified School District and a parents group that is seeking to split the district.

School board members said Monday that they will not negotiate further with the East Peninsula Educational Council (EPEC), which has favored secession since 1987, when the board said it planned to close Miraleste High School on the east side of the peninsula because of declining enrollment.

Instead, board members said they will take their chances that the state Board of Education will decide in their favor by ruling that voters should not be allowed to decide if a new district should be formed. The state panel failed to decide the issue in July but is scheduled to take it up again next Thursday.

In addition to the action pending before the state board, the district faces a pending legal challenge over its decision to close Miraleste.

The state board had urged the peninsula school board and the parents group to reach a compromise. On July 24, the school board said it was willing to keep Miraleste open if the parents were willing to allow students throughout the district to attend the high school of their choice. The parents group responded favorably, saying it was willing to talk with the board.

Board Ultimatum

But the talks hit a roadblock last week when the board made a counteroffer and delivered an ultimatum demanding that the secessionist group respond by Monday.

“The negotiations are over,� Supt. Jack Price declared in an interview. “I don’t think we’ll ever get the board back to the table on this issue. If the state board is delaying to give us an opportunity to work this out, that is a wrong reason.�

The school board’s decision came after leaders of the parents group urged the district to keep talks going and bring in a facilitator. “We are committed to a solution that is both fair and equitable to all district students and which will provide a continuing high quality of education for all of our children,� the group said in a letter signed by its chairman, Tom Jankovich. The letter was read to the board by a member of the parents group.

� . . . We ask that (the school) district formally appoint a negotiating team to work with our negotiating team and a mutually acceptable facilitator to hammer out a well-thought-out, systematically implemented compromise,� the letter continued.

Last week, in the latest round in the long, bitter debate between the two sides, the school board issued an ultimatum to the parents, saying it was willing to keep Miraleste open only if students at that school were allowed to transfer to the district’s other high schools in Rolling Hills Estates and Palos Verdes Estates if they so chose. The board has maintained that some students who attend the smaller Miraleste feel shortchanged because the school does not offer as many classes as the other two high schools.

In a letter to the group, the board also said it would not allow a facilitator to sit in on negotiations.

Leaders of the parents group angrily responded that board President Jeffrey Younggren and Vice President Jack Bagdasar had agreed in principle to hire a facilitator to oversee negotiations. The agreement took place after two private meetings with group leaders, they said.

Moreover, the group asserted that the board was reneging on its earlier pledge to keep Miraleste open and allow students districtwide to enroll in whatever high school they wanted to. The parents fear that by allowing only Miraleste students to transfer, the district may not give the high school a fair chance to succeed.

‘No Rational Basis’

“It’s management by Keystone Kops,� parent spokesman Ted Gibbs said Tuesday. “That is what I would call the district. They have no rational basis for taking the positions they have taken, and they continue to change on a day-to-day basis.�

Younggren was on vacation and could not be reached for comment. However, Bagdasar confirmed in an interview that he and Younggren had met with the group and indicated that they would favor hiring a facilitator. But the other three board members were opposed to the idea, he said.

Also, Bagdasar said the board backed off its earlier offer to allow open enrollment districtwide after school administrators said they could not handle the logistics. School starts Sept. 11.

Bagdasar added that board members were also irked after learning about a letter the parents group sent in early August to the state Board of Education as part of its rebuttal to the district’s testimony in July. The letter accused the district of presenting half-truths “as gospel� and having an “Alice in Wonderland approach to public testimony.�

Agreed to ‘Cool It’

The letter was sent after the peninsula school board and the parents had agreed to stop calling each other names and to negotiate in a gentlemanly fashion, Bagdasar said.

“The thing that upset me was we had this good-faith agreement that everyone would cool it,� he said.

Board members and parent leaders predicted that they would prevail before the state agency, which last month voted 5 to 3 against the idea of allowing voters to decide if a new district should be formed. Six votes are needed before the panel’s decisions are binding. The parents group has asked the state board to delay hearing the case until after local school board elections are held in November. Three former leaders of the parents organization are seeking school board seats.

No matter what the state panel ultimately decides, Miraleste will stay open at least for the fall term under a 1988 court order that overturned the district’s decision to close the high school. The order, issued in Los Angeles Superior Court, mandated that an environmental impact report on school closings throughout the district be completed. The district is preparing that report.