Showdown Anticipated Over Future of Miraleste

At an acrimonious school board meeting last week, residents of the east side of the Palos Verdes Peninsula accused the board of bad faith in its offer to keep open Miraleste High School by converting it to an intermediate school.

The rebuff of the board’s offer sets the stage for a showdown between the Palos Verdes Unified School District, which has planned to close the school, and a parents group known as the East Peninsula Education Council, which wants to keep Miraleste open as a high school.

The proposal to keep Miraleste open, but as an intermediate school for 350 to 425 pupils in grades six to eight, was made last month by school board members hoping to avoid continued legal and jurisdictional confrontations.

School board officials say that because of declining enrollment, the district no longer can afford to operate three high schools on the Palos Verdes Peninsula. Closing one would save money and enable the district to maintain a full educational program at the remaining two.

Net $600,000

Converting Miraleste to an intermediate school would save about half as much as an outright closure but would nevertheless net the district $600,000 a year, according to school officials.

In return for keeping Miraleste open as an intermediate school, the board wants the parents group to drop a lawsuit over the closure effort. It also wants the group to stop attempts to secede from the Palos Verdes school district and form a separate school district for the less populous east side.

Crunch points are coming up in both efforts.

The State Board of Education is scheduled to vote on a petition seeking an East Peninsula school district at its March 7-8 meeting.

In the court case, school officials are close to commencing work on an environmental impact report sought by the lawsuit. The report, which could cost $100,000, was ordered by the judge in the case.

At the meeting Thursday night, Tom Jankovich, chairman of the parents group, praised the school board for agreeing “in principle” that Miraleste could continue to function as a school.

But he accused the board of negotiating in bad faith because of discussions it has held with Marymount College officials to use a portion of the Miraleste facility, which can accommodate 1,300 students, or perhaps to swap college and school facilities. Jankovich said the parents group learned of those discussions from college officials.

“Needless to say, we were understandably dismayed at the district’s parallel and mutually exclusive discussions, which were evidently being carried on toward incompatible ends,” Jankovich told the board.

“There are those in the community who take a dim view of having sixth graders mixing with college students on the same campus.”

Board President Jeffrey N. Younggren said he was stunned at the parents group’s response. “I don’t understand how the Marymount issue has anything to do with the proposal. It is a red herring,” he said. Younggren said school officials had openly discussed Marymount’s use of the facility before the compromise proposal was formulated, as one way to increase school district revenues.

“To have it distorted as a secret maneuver is ridiculous,” he said. “What I want to hear from EPEC is, are they willing to deal?”

Other board members said they were frustrated because the parents group did not express any interest in settling the controversy and instead chose to attack the board.

“I resent very much any innuendo that we have negotiated in bad faith or with ulterior motives,” said board member Joseph Sanford.

He said he believes that the east-side group’s concerns about Marymount’s possible use of the facility could be negotiated satisfactorily.He promised to attend a meeting of the group Wednesday evening in the Miraleste school library to hear other concerns about the proposal.

After the school board meeting, members of the parents group said it would be difficult to stop legal proceedings or call off the secession movement.

About 5,600 East Peninsula residents signed petitions seeking secession from the Palos Verdes Unified School District.Although the parents group organized the signature drive, it does not have the power to retract the petitions, according to Bob Lyon, chairman of its legal committee.

Members also are reluctant to make any agreement with the school board that cannot be binding on subsequent boards. Lyon said the group’s lawyers are researching whether an agreement that is part of a court order could have such binding power. The attorney for the school board said it could.