School Board to Appeal Ruling Keeping Miraleste Open

Miraleste High School’s future remained in doubt on Wednesday after the Palos Verdes Peninsula school board decided to appeal a court ruling that had blocked plans to close the campus in June.

District spokeswoman Nancy Mahr said school district attorneys believe that they can get a quick ruling from the state Court of Appeal that would enable the district to proceed with plans to place Miraleste’s students on other campuses when the new school year opens in September.

If the appellate court refuses to overturn the May 10 decision by Superior Court Judge Miriam A. Vogel, Mahr said, there will still be time to juggle teacher and student assignments so Miraleste can continue to operate for another year.

Vogel, in a lawsuit brought by Miraleste parents, ruled that before the district can shut down the east Peninsula school, it must consider any cumulative environmental effects that may result from closing all but one school on that side of the district.

District officials contend that state laws exempt school systems from provisions of the California Environmental Quality Act, which otherwise requires governmental agencies to file reports on public projects that may affect the surrounding environment.

Mahr said district lawyers are awaiting a transcript of Vogel’s hearing before determining the direction of their appeal. “Everything is up in the air until we get more information,” Mahr said, referring to preparations to close Miraleste on schedule or keep it operating for another year.

Assignments in Computers

She said the class choices and school assignments of east side students are already in the district’s computers, in anticipation of closing Miraleste. But school officials may set up a second program of assignments to prepare for the possibility that the school may not close in June, she said.

In the latter event, Mahr said, numerous class offerings throughout the district will have to be dropped to offset the loss of $1.2 million in savings that would have resulted from closing the east side campus.

Ted Gibbs, a leader of the east Peninsula parents group that brought the suit, said the district’s legal maneuver will not enable it to close Miraleste.

“Judge Vogel’s ruling was crystal clear and we are confident that any appeal will fail,” he said. He also questioned whether the district can get a new court hearing before school reopens in the fall.

The board’s decision to appeal Vogel’s ruling followed a public hearing on Tuesday night concerning a petition by east side parents to secede from the district and establish an independent school system on their side of the hill. A second hearing by the county Committee on School District Organization, an agency that evaluates proposals to change school boundaries, is will be held at 7 p.m. Wednesday at Rolling Hills High School.

At the hearing, held in the Miraleste auditorium, Tom Jankovich Jr., chairman of the East Peninsula Education Council, led off a well-organized presentation by about 25 speakers. They told the county committee and an audience of about 800--mostly east side boosters, judging from the applause for pro-secession speakers--that the district’s decision in November to close Miraleste was one step too far in a decade-long process of stripping their community of its neighborhood schools.

The district has closed four schools in the proposed new district, which is generally east of Crenshaw Bouevard. Three have been closed on the west side in the effort to adjust to a rapid decline in enrollment throughout the Peninsula.

‘Best Interest of Children’

“Loyalty to the (existing) district is well and good,” said Donna Perrin, president of the parents group, “but we can’t put that loyalty above the best interests of our children.”

Those interests, she and other speakers said, dictate formation of a small district that can concentrate on the needs of east side students. Those needs have been neglected, she argued, by the present system, which she said is dominated by the more populous west side.

Perrin used a table-size contour map to point out the geographical isolation of the east side. An inadequate road system connecting the two sides would make it difficult and hazardous for east side students to commute to schools on the west side, she and other speakers contended.

The new district would start with about 1,750 students--250 more than the minimum required for a new district under state law--and gradually increase its enrollment to around 2,200, Perrin said.

Donald A. Erickson, a professor at the UCLA graduate school of education, cited studies indicating that smaller school systems fare very well. A “cult of efficiency,” dating from the turn of the century, has mistakenly equated bigness with quality in education, he said.

Deprived of Opportunity

Lani Seidel, a Miraleste junior, said east side students will be deprived of many opportunities for extracurricular activities if they have to commute to the west side.

After nearly four hours, about a half-dozen speakers, including Supt. Jack Price and three school board members, presented the district’s side of the dispute to the weary committee members and a small audience. They argued that one unified system can do a better job of educating all of the Peninsula’s children.

Anti-secession leaders said they are saving up their ammunition for the May 26 hearing on the west side, when they will be given first turn on the firing line.

Deborah L. Simons, the county school agency’s secretary, said the committee will make its recommendation on the proposed new district by Aug. 3. The petition then goes to the state Board of Education, which has four months to reject it or call for an election by Peninsula voters.

If the petition goes to the voters, an election would be set in the period from March to June of 1989, Simons said. If the voters--just those in the proposed district or throughout the Peninsula, as decided by the state board--approve the petition, the new district would be created on July 1, 1990, she said.