Blog note: This article refers to several Marin County grand jury reports and demonstrates that sometimes it takes many years for a grand jury recommendation to have an effect.
A
new Marin citizens group is taking on the task of potentially dislodging the
weighty, entrenched — and some say redundant — public school system in the
county.
The
group, called Better Together for Public Education, is focusing on the 10 K-8
districts in southern and West Marin that feed into the Tamalpais Union High
School District.
“As
of July 1, we will have 17 school districts to serve 33,000 students — which
seems excessive to anyone looking at that,” said group leader Sheri Mowbray, a
former Larkspur-Corte Madera School District trustee.
In
addition to Mowbray, members include nine other current and former school board
and city council officials and a school administrator.
“The
focus is to provide the best academic education for our children,” said
committee member Sloan Bailey, a former Corte Madera town councilman. “The
larger concept is to try to save money and avoid unnecessary administration and
bureaucracy.”
Bailey said the
group is not fixated on a specific outcome. He and other members just have a
desire to explore possibilities and gather data. At least two Marin County
Civil Grand Jury reports in 2012 and 2004 have recommended the issue be
addressed — but after decades, it’s still just a talking point, Bailey said.
“The
worst enemy of this topic is inertia,” he said.
The
10 so-called “feeder” K-8 districts in southern Marin that channel elementary
and middle school students into the Tamalpais Union High School District’s five
high schools include: Larkspur-Corte Madera, Kentfield, Mill Valley, Reed Union,
Sausalito Marin City, Lagunitas, Ross, Nicasio, Bolinas-Stinson and Ross
Valley.
“Those
10 districts include 15,000 of Marin’s 33,000 public education students,”
Mowbray said. “It’s almost half of Marin’s public education system.”
She
said she has been thinking about this issue for at least 15 years. Cutting
costs is one of several obvious benefits, she said.
“There
is incredible duplication,” Mowbray said. “In this Tam District feeder group,
there are 10 budgets, 10 LCAPs (academic allocation plans), 10 school boards,
10 curricula that need to get done. The same thing is being done over and over
by people serving the same needs.”
In
addition to streamlining finances and procedures, Mowbray said she thinks
joining districts together could provide opportunities for specialized academic
programs that might be too expensive for smaller districts. Those could
include, for example, a Spanish-English dual immersion elementary school or a
technology speciality program.
“Perhaps
students are missing out because the districts are so small,” she said. “I
wonder about that.”
Mowbray,
who also served on the Tamalpais Union High School District board of trustees,
said the move could also provide a smoother transition for area middle
schoolers into high school.
“Because
we have 10 K-8 districts feeding into the one Tam high school district, it
creates a lot of disconnect for students who were coming in from 10 different
curricular programs,” she said.
Despite
their energy and good intentions, the Better Together group, which Mowbray said
has been meeting weekly since March, hit a bureaucratic wall on its first
inquiry last month when it approached the Marin County Committee on School
District Organization.
Their
request for committee support was a non-starter because any such proposals need
to go through a public vetting process first before they reach the county, said
Terena Mares, the Marin’s deputy superintendent of schools and staff assistant
to the county committee.
“We
don’t have an opinion on this,” Mares said. “These are locally driven
decisions.”
According
to state law, the “path to reorganization of school district boundaries has to
be done by petition,” Mares said. “And the code is very prescriptive as to what
that looks like.”
Once
the prescribed number of voter signatures is gathered, the issue is presented
to the Marin County superintendent of schools. The county superintendent then
verifies through the county registrar of voters whether the signatures are
valid, Mares said.
Once
verified, the petition then could go to the Marin County Committee on School
District Organization, which would schedule public hearings on the issue.
“They
have to follow the nine conditions laid out by the state as to what qualifies as
an approvable district organization,” Mares said. “Even if all nine conditions
are met, the county committee can say yes, but they can also say no.”
For
the nine conditions to be met, the Southern Marin group would first need to do
a series of studies. Those include a California Environmental Quality Act
report, a study on student transportation, staff salary schedules, facilities
bonds and parcel taxes.
“It
is oftentimes a very expensive venture to perform all those reports and
analyses,” Mares said. After the public hearings, the matter would go to a
state board and then to voters on a ballot measure.
“It’s
a two- to three-year process, at minimum,” Mares said. “I’ve seen school
districts take 10 years to get this done.”
Mowbray
said the committee members realize “this is a very steep hill,” and that there
are fierce loyalties and strongly held interests in local control among the
various Marin school communities.
“This
is a political hot potato and very controversial — and we understand that,” she
said.
However,
the group is undeterred. Now, given their marching orders from the county,
Better Together will be strategizing over the summer and then launching
outreach with the local school boards in the fall, she said.
The
group may also form a 501(c)(3) nonprofit to raise money for the studies that
will be needed.
“The
way it’s structured, it may take many years — but if you don’t start now, when
are you going to start?” Mowbray said.
“My answer to ‘why now?’ is ‘why not now’?”
Marin
Independent Journal
By KERI BRENNER | kbrenner@marinij.com
July 2, 2021
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