County Panel OKs 2 Plans to Reorganize 4 School Districts : Education: Hermosa Beach, Manhattan Beach, Redondo Beach and South Bay Union High School districts would be affected by the proposals.

A county committee this week approved two plans to reorganize four school districts in the South Bay’s beach cities, and it is now up to the State Board of Education to decide whether the plans will go before voters for final approval.

The reorganization is supported by officials of the four districts as a way to deal with sagging enrollments and funding shortfalls. With approval from the state board, voters in Hermosa Beach, Manhattan Beach and Redondo Beach could decide on a plan as soon as November.

“Needless to say, we are delighted,” said Barbara Dunsmoor, a trustee of the Manhattan Beach City School District. But, she added, “I think we need not to forget that while (Wednesday) was a very good day for us, we still have a lot of work to do.”

The three cities, which now have separate elementary school districts, have debated the virtues of reorganizing for about 30 years. All three districts send high school students to the South Bay Union High School District, which includes Redondo Union and Mira Costa high schools.

All of the districts agree on the need to reorganize, but rivalries among the three cities have prevented consensus on a plan. As a result, three separate proposals are pending.

The proposal that is supported by all the districts was one of two that won the approval of the Los Angeles County Committee on School District Organization on Wednesday. That proposal would create two kindergarten through 12th-grade districts--one in Manhattan Beach and the other in Redondo Beach.

Under that plan, the Manhattan Beach City School District would take over Mira Costa High, while the Redondo Beach City School District would take over Redondo Union High.

The plan also would change Hermosa Beach into a unified kindergarten through eighth-grade district and allow it to send its high school students to either of the other two districts.

The problem with the proposal, which is called the four-district plan, is that the Hermosa Beach City School District does not have enough students to qualify as a unified school district under state law. The Hermosa Beach district now has about 900 students--considerably fewer than the 1,500 required by the state.

Special urgency legislation that would exempt Hermosa Beach from that requirement is pending in the state Senate Education Committee. However, unless the bill passes in the next few months, the State Board of Education is likely to scrap or delay the reorganization plan.

“We’ll be doing whatever we have to do to get this (bill) moving,” said Mary Lou Weiss, a Hermosa Beach school board trustee. She said the trustees will appear before the state Senate committee on Wednesday to lobby for the bill’s passage.

If the state does not allow the four-district plan to go before the voters, both Manhattan Beach and Redondo Beach school districts are pursuing separate reorganization proposals.

The one proposed by Manhattan Beach was also approved by the county committee Wednesday and is similar to the four-district plan in that Manhattan Beach would take over Mira Costa High School.

Redondo Beach’s proposal would create a K-12 district by joining city schools and Redondo Union High School. The county committee authorized the school district to proceed with its plan, and a public hearing will be held Jan. 22. The committee will consider Redondo Beach’s plan next month.

The State Board of Education will take up both the four-district plan and the Manhattan Beach proposal in the next several months. If either the Manhattan Beach or Redondo Beach plan is approved by voters, Hermosa Beach could be forced to join one of the two districts.

Despite the competing unification plans, Manhattan Beach and Redondo Beach trustees say they do not want to see Hermosa Beach forced to consolidate with another district against its will. As a result, they all plan to lobby in support of the four-district plan.

“The county committee is concerned, as we all are, that Hermosa Beach not be left behind,” Dunsmoor said. “We still believe that the best possible plan is the one that involves all three communities because we are not isolated, one from the other.”

BACKGROUND

Elementary school districts in Hermosa Beach, Manhattan Beach and Redondo Beach, along with the South Bay Union High School District, have tried to reorganize three times in 28 years. The first effort in 1964 was approved by the State Board of Education but later defeated at the polls. Two years later, and again in 1972, voters overwhelmingly rejected plans to unify the three school districts. Funding shortfalls and sagging enrollments resurrected the issue in 1989, and now the four districts back a plan in which the high school district would be dismantled and kindergarten through 12th-grade districts would be created in Manhattan Beach and Redondo Beach. Hermosa Beach would retain its elementary district and send its high school students to either of the K-12 districts.