$1 Million : Gift Boosts Educational Park Plans

The Los Angeles Unified School District has received a gift of more than $1 million to begin developing an educational park at the former Ft. MacArthur in San Pedro.

On Monday the Los Angeles Board of Education accepted a gift of $1,050,000 from the charitable Milken Family Foundation to help build an outdoor education facility and operate a special-education training program on the ocean-view site.

School district officials said the gift will probably ensure that the district will be able to retain the 52-acre site, formerly known as the upper reservation of Ft. MacArthur. The site was deeded to the district by the federal government in 1979 with the understanding that a high school would be built on the land. Since then, the government has indicated that the district can retain the property if it finds other acceptable educational uses for it.

Earlier this year, the school district proposed developing the site as an educational park, centered on a facility for the care and study of marine animals. Dominic Shambra, district administrator for special programs and activities, said the government is expected to approve the plan this summer.

The Milken Family Foundation, headquartered in Encino, was established by the family whose best-known member is junk-bond king Michael Milken, president of the investment firm of Drexel Burnham Lambert. Shambra said the district’s understanding was that the gift would not be jeopardized by the Securities and Exchange Commission’s recent decision to file securities-fraud charges against Milken and the firm.

The Milken gift will be used to run a special-education training program for teachers at the Ft. MacArthur site. The foundation has agreed to provide $150,000 a year for five years to operate the program--now housed elsewhere in the district--which prepares teachers to work with students with learning and behavior problems.

The district has agreed to a foundation request to name the training center after the late Gilbert Salka, a Milken family member who taught special education.

The foundation will also give the district $300,000 to build a meeting and dining room and a kitchen for a proposed outdoor education center. That center, to be named for the Milken Family Foundation, will provide daytime programs for students throughout the district and also will have sleeping facilities. The district plans to use the facility year-round and has proposed using it on weekends for special programs for potential dropouts.

‘Location Is Great’

Shambra said district staff members are excited about the educational park, which will include a marine animal care and study facility financed by publisher and theme-park operator Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. “There’s no place in Southern California where there is a marine study center of this nature,” he said. “Its location is great. It’s right above the tide pools.”

Students using the park will have easy access to the harbor, the Cabrillo Beach Marine Museum and other places of interest in the area, Shambra noted.

Shambra said construction will probably begin next spring.

The Milken gift “will be a big help,” he said.