South Bay High School District Withholds OK of Unification Plans

Elementary school officials in Manhattan Beach and Redondo Beach failed to win immediate support for their unification proposals from the South Bay Union High School District Monday night at a joint meeting of beach city school boards.

But in a prepared statement read at the beginning of the meeting--which drew about 500 people to the Pacific Elementary School cafetorium in Manhattan Beach--the high school board said it would rethink its position if the two elementary school districts can ensure that the number of students and quality of education at Mira Costa High School in Manhattan Beach will not decline as a result of unification.

The board also asked for a proposal for educating high school students from Hermosa Beach who attend Redondo Union and Mira Costa high schools but whose elementary district has chosen to remain independent. Officials there are considering contracting for high school services with the new unified districts, should they be formed. This would require special state legislation.

Redondo Beach and Manhattan Beach are moving to form unified school districts whose boundaries would follow city lines. Between the two, they would incorporate both of the high school district’s schools--Mira Costa and Redondo Union High School in Redondo Beach.

The high school district’s concern stems from a conclusion by consultant Terry McHenry--who studied reconfiguration for the beach cities’ districts last year--that Manhattan Beach alone could not provide sufficient enrollment to sustain a viable high school.

He said Mira Costa would be left with only 900 students, as more than 500 students from North Redondo would relocate to Redondo Union. He predicted there also would be a decline in program offerings.

“We’re asking viable guarantees for Mira Costa,” said Armando Acosta, a high school district trustee.

Manhattan Beach and Redondo Beach trustees immediately took an informal vote--which they expect to make official in later resolutions--to support open enrollment. That would allow Redondo students to continue at Mira Costa, if unification should separate the two cities.

“We have always had open enrollment at the high schools and we have Redondo Beach students who want to go to Mira Costa,” said Redondo board President Sylvia Zeller. “We will not change our minds.”

The high school board also asked the districts seeking unification to stipulate how Mira Costa would maintain the current district graduation requirement of 230 units and how it would maintain the current breadth of programs, including academics, vocational and special education programs, electives, extracurricular activities and athletic events.

Support from the high school district is significant because it would relieve the Manhattan Beach and Redondo Beach districts of the need to secure signatures of 25% of registered voters on unification petitions. With high school district concurrence, petitions may be submitted to the Los Angeles County Office of Education without signatures.

Superintendents in the two districts said they were not expecting the conditions the high school district announced Monday. “The issues brought up were important issues. Since we want to address them, too, we would have been pleased to have had them ahead of time,” said Manhattan Supt. Jerry Davis.

Davis noted that the boards were able to address only the Mira Costa enrollment issue Monday night. Asked how the Manhattan board might respond to the high school district’s other conditions, Davis said: “I want direction from the board to study it, and we’ll look at the data to see if we can respond.”

In an interview last week, Davis disputed McHenry’s conclusions about Mira Costa. He said they were based on a small high school with grades nine through 12, while Manhattan Beach is looking at a possible configuration of seventh through 12th grades. “If we go 7-12, the school would be 1,400 or 1,500, much like Corona del Mar or La Canada,” he said.

Redondo Supt. Beverly Rohrer said that, regardless of the high school district’s position, Redondo will continue to circulate unification petitions and seek special legislation allowing it, as the largest beach city district, to unify without consensus of the other districts. She said the district expects to collect its required 8,000 signatures by mid-summer.

Manhattan Beach, which must collect 5,000 signatures to meet the 25% requirement, has not begun circulating petitions.

Consultant McHenry has endorsed a combined Manhattan-Hermosa district as viable. But, despite requests by some residents Monday that Hermosa change its mind about staying out of unification, district trustees held their ground.

“We have no problems educationally joining Manhattan Beach,” said Hermosa board President Joe Mark. “Our concern is control.”

The Hermosa district contends its views would be lost in merging with the larger Manhattan system, but Manhattan Beach would not be so likely to dominate in a district encompassing all three beach cities--a plan Hermosa once favored but which Redondo and Manhattan rejected.

Hermosa board member Mary Lou Weiss said her major concern is the high cost involved in operating a high school and the possibility that elementary schools might be shortchanged.

Under the unification process, local districts petition the County Education Office to unify. The county holds public hearings and makes recommendations to the State Board of Education. The board, in turn, holds a hearing and decides if a local unification election should be held.