New School, New Spirit for Students : 132 Ninth-Graders Start Out With the Heady Sense of Shaping Their Own Educational World

An air of history in the making hung over Malibu High School on opening day like the unseasonal fog shrouding the Santa Monica Mountains rising up behind it.

“This high school will be what we make it,” student Ecila Davis said over a salsa-drenched quesadilla and a Popsicle during snack period.

Davis was one of 132 students to enter ninth grade at the new high school Thursday, culminating a decades-long struggle to create a public high school in the northwestern reaches of the Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District.

“As you come on campus,” Principal Bob Donahue told students at a ribbon-cutting ceremony that morning, “you join a dream that has been percolating in this community for many years.”

Formerly Malibu Park Middle School, Malibu High School runs from sixth through ninth grade. An additional grade will be added each year until the 12th grade is reached. If all goes well, the first seniors will graduate in 1996.

Local students now have the option of avoiding a long bus ride to Santa Monica High School. And students throughout the district can choose to receive their education at the smaller campus in the rustic foothills above Zuma Beach.

“Malibu High School is about choice,” school board member Pam Brady said at the opening ceremony.

In order to assure that the campus was integrated, administrators recruited minority students. About 40% of the ninth-graders are Latino, African-American or Asian-American.

Half of the ninth-graders came from the Malibu Park Middle School attendance area, and 41 are from Santa Monica. More than a dozen came from other districts and private schools.

Administrators were surprised by the surge of sixth-graders from Topanga Elementary School in the Los Angeles Unified School District. Because of the publicity about the high school, “people realized there was a sleeper school out here,” Donahue said. About 20 students received transfer permits.

The district plans to spend $10 million over the next three years to upgrade school facilities.

The plan has been criticized by parents who think that the district cannot afford it. The district made $1.5 million in cuts this year to balance the budget.

Board member Mary Kay Kamath defended the plan. She noted that Malibu, which contains less than half the population of Santa Monica, generates about 45% of the developer fees the school district collects annually. Such fees will constitute $2.5 million of the total earmarked for the school.

“The community has a right to feel that money should be spent here,” she said.

The other $7.5 million will come from a $75-million capital-improvement bond issue passed by voters in 1990.

Because the campus is small--just 538 students--administrators and teachers will take creative, often experimental approaches to go beyond the basics, Donahue said.

The mountains and the sea will be used as field settings for science classes. History and literature will be taught in combination to reinforce themes. Honors credits will be earned by doing special projects. Advanced placement courses may be taught by satellite.

Musicians and linguists from the community will be called upon to teach, as will experts from local businesses such as Hughes Research Laboratory.

Pepperdine University will be an important resource, Donahue said. He said he hopes that eventually, students will be able to earn advance college credits there and participate in theater and music programs.

Student spirit was high Thursday. Ecila Davis joined the cheerleading squad. Alan Bryant of Santa Monica said he planned to sign up for basketball come November. His girlfriend, Wendy Hernandez, said she hoped to make lots of new friends.

Matt Vaughan said he doesn’t mind waking up at 5:50 a.m. to catch the bus from Ocean Park. The surfer said he finds the seascape much more to his liking than Santa Monica High.

On a serious note, he hopes to get a better education at the smaller school. “I’m not the greatest student, and I need all the help I can get,” he said.

Students will take an active part in shaping the school, Donahue pledged.

Already, students have chosen the school mascot, a shark. Donahue said he would have preferred a dolphin but accepted the verdict.

“Sharks are thought to be aggressive, so that will be good for sports,” he said. “The important thing is that the students chose it.”