Local News in Brief : School District Challenged

A parents’ group is seeking a court injunction to prevent the Palos Verdes Unified School District from disposing of two surplus campuses that the group says it needs to form its own school system.

The action, filed Friday in Los Angeles Superior Court by the East Peninsula Education Council, asks the court to order the district not to carry out its plan to close Miraleste High School on the east side of the Peninsula this spring. It also asks the court to overturn a proposed development agreement between the district and the City of Rolling Hills Estates that could lead to the sale of the closed Dapplegray Intermediate campus in that city.

The parents’ group last month announced its plans to secede from the district, contending that the sparsely populated east side has been unfairly deprived of its schools in the district’s efforts to cut back on operating costs. Robert Lyon, a spokesman for the group, said its attorneys will start digging into district records “as soon as possible” in an effort to prove that school officials violated environmental and other laws in their attempts to dispose of the two properties.