In March, repairs, renovations and classroom additions were completed at Mira Costa High School.
Seven years earlier, voters had approved a $67.5 million bond to finance the project.
The work’s recent completion prompted the Manhattan Beach Unified School District to conduct an assessment of all of its campuses, according to school board President Bill Fournell.
“We realized that we needed to look at our long term plans for all our facilities,” he said.
The school board hired the DLR Group to draft a master plan for the next decade.
Over the past few months, DLR has presented several versions of the plan, making revisions in response to community feedback. On July 15, the final plan will be presented to the school board for approval.
Plans for the majority of the district’s eight schools have been unopposed. But the plans for Manhattan Beach Middle School and Grand View Elementary have drawn scrutiny from some community members.
The controversy with the middle school has to do with its proximity to Polliwog Park, which is owned by the school district and leased by the city. The plan proposes expanding into the park to build a large pool, a 750-seat multipurpose room that could be used as a performance space and greatly expanded kitchens.
The Friends of Polliwog Park was formed over a year ago in opposition to proposals to add a skate park to the park. Having blocked the skate park, they are now taking aim at the school proposal.
“When I first saw [the plan], I thought, ‘Gee, I wish we had a skate park,’” said Julie Profet, the organization’s chair. “It took up less space.”
The group has created an online petition asking the board to reject the plan. It had 345 signatures as of Monday, according to Profet, whose children went through the Manhattan Beach public school system.
When not in use the school district rents out classrooms and the city rents all of its other facilities to the public. The Friends of Polliwog Park worry that larger facilities will bring more traffic, noise and pollution.
“It’s not that the Friends of Polliwog Park are opposed to the entire plan,” said Stephanie Robins, another member. “Our only point of contention is the warrantless expansion of Manhattan Beach Middle School. I do feel like there’s been a deliberate lack of sensitivity for the neighbors. It’s the type of expansion mainly done to create revenue, as opposed to meeting students’ needs.”
The group points to the B grade given to the campus, defined as, “Minor corrective actions required for some systems. Corrective actions are not urgent.”
In response to the residents’ comments, the architects moved the pick up and drop off area to the west side of the park, according to Fournell.
Both sides agree there currently isn’t enough parking. The plan includes 65 additional spaces.
However, more paved areas would reduce the amount of absorbent land, which alarms the Friends of Polliwog Park, given the area’s tendency to flood. The pond is a stormwater retention basin that pumps out water. The infrastructure, installed in the middle of the last century, has long needed updating.
“This school board, if it had any respect for the quality of lives of the residents, would be seeking to enlarge the amount of permeable land, rather than taking it away to enrich their coffers,” said Robins.
When asked about some of the residents’ concerns, Fournell emphasized that the plans are preliminary.
“It’s really like a wish list of all the things we’d like to do,” he said. “There’s no way to do all of it. We’ll see what the community’s support is for which aspects” of the plan.
After the cost estimates are given at the July 15 meeting, the school district and community will discuss their priorities, Fournell said. Then the school district could begin work on a campaign to promote the bond to finance the projects. The district has not decided the date of the ballot measure.
Fournell acknowledged that some of the potential additions at Manhattan Beach Middle School are probably more than what is strictly needed. The school is projected to have a decline in enrollment. But the district wants to take into account the larger needs of the city, he said.
“It would be silly to pretend not to know that the city doesn’t also have ideas for aspects of the park,” he said. “I think it’s part of our responsibility to look at the overall” picture.
A community pool, for instance, is an amenity that has long been discussed and that the city might be interested in pursuing, Fournell said. The park currently has Begg Pool, but it’s “shallow and old and the facility is outdated,” he said.
“It’s something middle school students use, but it’s as much, if not more than, a community facility,” he said. “The community oftentimes wants to rent our space. We do have an obligation to the community if it’s available during non-school hours. It is a public asset.”
Fournell said he thought the district would begin talking with the city in the next six months after the plan was approved about any possible collaborations. Those talks would then figure into the project prioritization.
Grand view of the future
Grand View Elementary received a C-plus in the study, defined as, “Some corrective actions required for some systems, some urgency is involved.” The steep grade of the land means much of the school doesn’t meet the requirements of the Americans with Disabilities Act and many classrooms may have to be torn down.
The district rents space on the campus to the Montessori School of Manhattan Beach, which has been at that location for 25 years, according to owner Judy Ernst.
Parents and an administrator spoke in support of the Montessori School at the school board’s June 3 meeting. One woman urged the school board “to think of the hundreds of families who have kids in Grand View and Montessori.”
“It’s not private school families versus public school families,” she said. “We’re all one family.”
Superintendent Dr. Michael Matthews said that the cost to preserve the Montessori School would be $3 million.
When one audience member asked if that was a “purchase price,” Matthews said that even if Montessori was interested, it would be legally questionable for a public school entity to sponsor a private one.
“With such a large additional amount, we did not see how it would be feasible for a public school to basically fund a private school,” he said.
Fournell pointed out that Grand View’s classrooms were rated as “some of the worst.”
Ernst said it was too early to comment on what the school might do if it had to leave. It has another campus on Peck Avenue. The two locations have a total of 450 students.
She noted that both she and her grandchildren attended the city’s public schools and said that she “supported improving the schools one hundred percent.”
“The better the schools are, the better the community is,” she said. “It’s what attracts people to Manhattan Beach.” ER
