LOCAL ELECTIONS : School Closure Vote Seen as Pivotal in P.V. Peninsula Race

An election-eve decision on the emotion-charged issue of school consolidation is expected to be a major factor at the polls Tuesday when Palos Verdes Peninsula school district voters choose two trustees from a field of seven candidates.

Incumbent Jack H. Bagdasar is seeking a second four-year term, and Trustee Martin C. Dodell chose not to run again after six years on the five-member board. The two posts will be filled by the two candidates who receive the most votes.

By settling the question before the election, the board hoped to minimize school closures as a campaign issue. But the prospect of losing a major campus, after seven closings of smaller schools in the last decade, has made consolidation a hot topic in the campaign. Passions heated up even more when an analysis by Supt. Jack Price last week pointed to Miraleste High School as the most likely campus to be closed.

A write-in candidate, financial analyst JoAnne Schoetzow, jumped into the race two weeks before the election when she heard that Rolling Hills High School might be the one to close.

Miraleste parents, who persuaded school trustees to start a 7th-through-12th-grade configuration at their school this year to boost enrollment, are threatening to pull their children out of the district if the plan is abandoned and their campus is closed. About 260 youngsters from the closed Dapplegray Intermediate School have been shifted to Miraleste.

Critics of the plan say it’s a political move to placate Miraleste on the east side of hill, and parents in other areas are resisting any move to change their neighborhood high schools to the 7-12 configuration. Of the candidates, only incumbent Bagdasar will cast a vote at the 7:30 p.m. board meeting Monday in the district’s Valmonte headquarters. He said the trustees will, “beyond any doubt,” decide on a major consolidation plan to bring facilities and programs into line with the 9,800-student district’s shrinking enrollment.

But Bagdasar, like several other candidates, says he is keeping an open mind on the big question of which of three high schools to close until the board completes its review of all the options.

“I vote Monday, the public votes Tuesday,” said Bagdasar, a former district teacher and administrator. “It’s a tough position to be in, but I’ll vote my conscience and let the chips fall where they may.”

Even though they won’t vote Monday, the other candidates say they realize that what they have said--or not said--on the consolidation issue will be weighed in the balance when voters mark their ballots Tuesday.

“Some of us have chosen not to take a position, and for my part I can live with that,” said Barbara (Mimi) Horowitz, a longtime school and community volunteer worker. “The current board members have taken it upon themselves to make the decision, and at this point they are the most knowledgeable and qualified to do that.”

Mortgage banker Steven T. Kuykendall also deferred to the board’s judgment, but after declining to take a position himself through most of the campaign, he said this week that he is “leaning toward” closing Miraleste.

Only two candidates, banker Joseph P. Sanford and college student Eric Engstrom, have come out solidly for closing Miraleste, the smallest of the district’s high schools. They say the others also should be willing to show their hands before the election.

“This is a critical issue for the schools and the community,” Sanford said. “People should be able to ask any of us, ‘Hey, how do you stand?’ and get a straight answer.”

Here is a summary of the candidates’ backgrounds and school views, in the order in which their names appear on the ballot:

Barbara (Mimi) Horowitz, 45, of Rancho Palos Verdes; district resident for 13 years. She was a high school teacher in Pennsylvania before moving with her family to this area. Her son, a UCLA student, attended district schools.

The only alternative to consolidation, Horowitz said, is a continuing deterioration in educational standards and possible bankruptcy. She said local donations and volunteer workers have helped keep the schools going, “but we still get 80% of our money from Sacramento and ultimately that’s where the funding problem must be solved.”

After years of lobbying for the district, Horowitz said, she has the skills and contacts needed to promote local interests in the state capital. “I have served in the trenches and I know this district and community,” she said.

Horowitz said reassigning junior high students to the Miraleste campus this year has provided program benefits for some youngsters, in addition to boosting enrollment at the school. But the 7th-through-12th-grade configuration, if tried districtwide, still would leave too few upper-grade students at the three high school campuses, she said.

Horowitz, whose community and school activities have made her one of the most prominent volunteer workers on the Peninsula, said running for the board is another way for her to serve.

And if she’s not chosen by the voters Tuesday, she said, “You’ll still see me at board meetings and all those other places.”

Eric Engstrom, 21, of Rancho Palos Verdes; district resident for 13 years. Now a pre-law student at USC, he graduated from Rolling Hills High School in 1984. He worked for the district in the audio-visual department and other jobs for several years, served on the parcel tax committee and ran for the school board two years ago, receiving about 5% of the vote.

Engstrom said he favors closing Miraleste because “the numbers are not there, pure and simple.” Consolidation will mean sacrifices for some, he said, “but there is no way we can sacrifice quality of education.” He said student scores have begun to decline on some standardized tests, which he said is a “clear sign that education is already suffering.”

Engstrom said his youth, combined with his experience in the district, would make him the best representative of student needs and perspectives on the school board.

Steven T. Kuykendall, 40, of Rancho Palos Verdes; district resident for 12 years. A principal in David Buxton Financial Corp., a mortgage banking firm in Torrance, he served on the district’s parcel tax and master planning committees. He has two children in district schools.

Consolidating intermediate and high school students on one campus may have some benefits for seventh- and eighth-grade youngsters, such as improving class offerings and facilities, Kuykendall said. But the district cannot deliver a full program to a dwindling number of upper-grade students at three separate campuses, he said.

For that reason, he said, one high school should close, and the best choice appears to be Miraleste. He added the caveat that board members are more qualified to make the choice, since they have studied the issue more closely than anyone else.

“Whatever the decision, some people are going to be unhappy with it,” Kuykendall said. He said voters should judge him and candidates in general on their qualifications for handling a wide range of issues over a four-year term.

As a board member, he said, he would use his business and financial expertise to help manage the district’s resources. Upgrading academic programs and promoting stronger ties with the community would be among his priorities, he said.

Joseph P. Sanford, 50, of Palos Verdes Estates; district resident for 15 years. He is president and co-founder of First Commercial Bank in Los Angeles. He has three children in district schools and served on both the school master planning and parcel tax committees.

Simple demographics dictate closing Miraleste, Sanford said. It is the smallest high school, with a capacity of about 1,600, he said, and fewer high school students live in the Miraleste area.

Splitting the district’s 4,000 upper-grade students between the Palos Verdes and Rolling Hills campuses would yield two schools with enough youngsters to make it financially possible to improve programs for them, Sanford said.

Each of those schools has student populations of about 1,600 and capacities of 2,300. Miraleste has 860 high school students and 280 intermediates reassigned from the closed Dapplegray campus.

“There’s a tremendous opportunity here to turn things around and get this district on a long-term, stable track,” he said. “But we have to start by putting education above location.”

With savings from more efficient operations, the district could afford such things as a seventh period at the intermediate level and more honors courses in high school. Sanford, who also said his financial and business expertise would benefit the district, said he would like to see a stronger effort to lure students back from private schools.

Brigit Schuegraf, 55, of Rancho Palos Verdes; district resident for 21 years. Her three children graduated from district schools. A retired physicist, she is co-founder and president of “Friends of School Music,” a group that has raised money to support the district’s instrumental music programs.

Schuegraf agrees that consolidation is necessary, but contends that a “solid, long-range plan” for using facilities should be developed and explained to the community before deciding which schools to close.

“There is too much emotion out there,” she said. “People are upset because the district hasn’t done an adequate job of explaining the facts and figures. Decisions should never be made under pressure.”

If Miraleste must close as a high school, she said, she would favor exploring the possibility of using the campus as a magnet school. The district may, in the long run, end up with only one high school, she said. If that happens, she would favor consolidating the upper grades at Rolling Hills High.

Schuegraf said she has been analyzing the district budget and believes more savings can be achieved. “But ultimately the money should come from Sacramento,” she said.

Jack W. Bagdasar, 64, of Rancho Palos Verdes; district resident for 11 years. His four grown children attended schools in Torrance, where the family lived before moving to the Peninsula. He was a teacher, elementary school principal and district administrator for 30 years, retiring in 1982. Now general manager of a Wilmington landholding firm, he was first elected to the school board in 1983.

He defended the board’s decision to create a 7th-through-12th-grade configuration at Miraleste, saying it wasn’t looking for a short-term political solution to Miraleste’s enrollment problems. It was, instead, an effort to determine the feasibility of the plan.

But since that decision, he said, the prospects of extending the plan districtwide have been undermined by an unexpected loss of 200 more high school students, depressed lottery revenues and the failure of voters to approve the parcel tax, which would have added $2.2 million a year to district income.

With fewer students and less money, the district may not be able to afford the more expensive configuration at the three high schools.

“I’m against force-feeding the rest of the district with the 7-12 plan,” he said. “But I’m going to keep listening and studying the options until the vote is taken.”

Bagdasar said there has been enough “agonizing” over which way to go with consolidation. “We need to get it done, so that we can start rebuilding,” he said.

JoAnne Schoetzow, 46, of Rancho Palos Verdes; district resident for five years. She has two children in Rolling Hills High School. A native of the Philippines, where she taught finance, she works as a fiscal analyst for the county’s Department of Community and Senior Citizen Services.

Schoetzow said public hearings on school consolidation made her realize that the “district is in financial chaos” and that the Rolling Hills campus might be closed.

“I don’t want any schools to close, including Miraleste,” she said. Even if a school must close, she said, the property should be held by the district because it may be needed in the future.

“We should have positive thoughts about enrollment rising,” she said. “This could become a ghost peninsula if we lose our schools.”

Schoetzow said the solution is to “mobilize the community” behind an effort to find new sources of revenue, locally and in Sacramento.