Bid to Secede From District Dealt Setback : Panel Urges State to Deny Election on Closing Miraleste

A committee recommended Thursday that the State Board of Education reject an election proposal by an east peninsula parents group that wants to secede from the Palos Verdes Peninsula Unified School District.

The board’s administrative committee voted 3 to 2 to recommend defeat of the secessionists’ petition at the full board meeting today.

The parents group, the East Peninsula Education Council, has favored secession since the board voted in 1987 to close Miraleste High School on the east side because of declining enrollment. The petition before the state board asks that Palos Verdes voters be allowed to decide if a new district should be formed.

EPEC members called Thursday’s committee vote a defeat.

“We are disappointed,” said Ted Gibbs, a spokesman for the parents group. “We would have liked to have the petition approved, but in the alternative, we would have wanted the board . . . to have simply deferred the matter until January.” The parents group had asked the board to delay voting on the matter until after the Palos Verdes school board elections in November. Three former EPEC leaders are among seven candidates running for three seats.

Representatives of the district, who have fought the secession movement for two years, were not claiming victory after Thursday’s vote.

“All we want is to get the kids off the hangman’s noose,” district Supt. Jack Price said. “I want them to stop twisting in the wind. Let’s get it resolved one way or another.”

State Board of Education member David T. Romero cast the deciding vote against the secessionists Thursday. Romero was absent in July when the state board deadlocked in a 5-3 vote against the secessionists. Six votes are needed on the 11-member panel to decide the matter, and two seats on the board are vacant.

Possible Switch in Sides

Price said the board could end up deadlocked again today, despite the committee’s recommendation and the addition of Romero’s vote against secession.

“Based on what knowledge we have of some of the board members, it is very likely to be a 5-4 vote,” Price said. He said there are indications that the student member of the panel, Parvas Mehta, would switch sides and vote in favor of the secessionists.

Mehta, a student at Cerritos High School, is the newest member of the board. He was appointed by Gov. George Deukmejian in May.

EPEC spokesman Gibbs said Mehta’s vote is “an unknown factor, but I would say we are fighting an uphill battle tomorrow.”

Even if the board casts a decisive vote today, the parents group vowed it would continue the fight, based on new evidence that will be available when the district issues an environmental impact report on the possible effects of closing Miraleste High School. The report, which had been expected as early as March, is scheduled for release within the next few weeks, members of the parents group said.

“There is a procedure to ask for a new hearing based on new evidence. The environmental impact report, when it is finally certified, will clearly show that it is practically impossible . . . to transfer 1,200 kids from the east side to the west,” Gibbs said.

Gibbs said busing Miraleste students to the west side would be dangerous, environmentally unsound and “educationally disadvantageous to both east-side and west-side kids.”

If the board is unable to reach a decision today, the issue will probably be put over until the next meeting, Oct. 13, in Santa Rosa.

The longstanding debate between the two sides has been acrimonious and divisive. EPEC has said some of its members have found their tires slashed and houses vandalized. On Thursday, Price accused the parents group of unfair tactics and said they have been unwilling to compromise.

Negotiations Cut Off

The school board cut off negotiations with the parents group last week after EPEC members urged the district to continue talks and bring in a facilitator. Palos Verdes board members then issued an ultimatum to the parents group, saying they were willing to keep Miraleste open only if students, if they chose to, were allowed to transfer to the district’s other two high schools in Rolling Hills Estates and Palos Verdes Estates. The board has maintained that some students now attending Miraleste feel shortchanged because the school does not offer as many classes as the other two high schools.

EPEC members accused the district of reneging on a promise to bring in a negotiator. Members of the parents group also said the district had promised to allow students districtwide to enroll in any of the high schools in the district. By allowing only Miraleste students to transfer, EPEC members said, the school would be at an unfair disadvantage from the start.

Supt. Price said Thursday that the district would like to put all the disputes behind it and see an end to the fight, no matter who wins.

“If they don’t have enough votes to approve the petition, then somebody ought to change their vote, disapprove it, and get rid of us. Or vice versa,” Price said.

“We have been at this thing too long. We’ve spent far too much money on this, and it needs to get resolved. We will do what we have to, either bind up the wounds, or help them have a good school district.”