Santa Monica Malibu Unified School District

Ending a sometimes acrimonious 3 1/2-month impasse, the Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District and its teachers union reached a tentative settlement this week in contract negotiations for the coming school year. The settlement gives teachers what they had been holding out for: a 6% salary increase for most teachers effective Feb. 1, 2000. The school district's original offer was a 5.75% raise.

If a well-heeled neighborhood of Los Angeles wanted better police protection, would it be OK for the residents to donate money to their local police station so it could assign an extra patrol car to their streets? Most people would rightly say no. Law enforcement is a public service; taxpayers support it for the safety of all, to be deployed as needed to provide the best protection for the city. Residents might hire a private security guard for their neighborhood, but they cannot reshape public allocations of resources to benefit themselves through private donations.

Santa Monica school officials are celebrating the opening of a $5-million campus housing two elementary schools. The campus is home to the first new campuses in the Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District in nearly 30 years, said Art Cohen, a district assistant superintendent. Money from a voter-approved $75-million bond to renovate the district's schools paid for the project. "It looks wonderful," said Cohen of the campus on Ocean Park Boulevard, just blocks from the beach.

The Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District is scheduled to vote this week on whether students need sugar to make healthy choices. Of course, the vote won't be structured that way, but sugar is what's at stake. The school board will vote on whether the district should eliminate sugared milk from its lunchtime offerings. Sugar will not go quietly. Last year, 76% of the milk served in the district was chocolate-flavored. Because each half-pint carton of flavored milk contains 8 grams more sugar than skim milk, last year alone about 5,600 pounds of added sugar was smuggled into children's diets through flavored milk.

Pink slip protesters paraded through the Third Street Promenade on Saturday. They chanted "save our schools," and denounced state budget cuts to education, which resulted in 207 Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District employees receiving layoff notices last month. Police and protest organizers estimated between 400 and 500 marchers took part. "The cuts proposed by the state of California are unacceptable.

Two elementary schools in the Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District have been named California Distinguished Schools. Will Rogers and Roosevelt schools are among 211 elementary schools statewide to receive the honor this year.

Eugene Tucker is the new superintendent of the Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District. He succeeds Supt. George Caldwell, who retired after 10 years with the district. Tucker, 56, is the former superintendent of the ABC Unified School District in Cerritos. He earned his bachelor's, master's and doctoral degrees from UCLA. Tucker has a four-year contract, with a salary of $80,000 a year.

In response to a nationwide challenge from students in New York City, students in the Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District have collected about $18,500 in donations for famine-struck Ethiopia, according to officials. Supt. George Caldwell said that contributions averaged $1.80 a student. "On a per-capita basis, this far outstrips the efforts in Los Angeles and New York City," he said.

The superintendent of the Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District is planning to leave to take a new job in Maryland, district officials said Thursday. John E. Deasy, who now oversees a district of more than 12,000 students, was chosen to head the Prince George's County school district, which has more than 134,000 students. Santa Monica-Malibu district officials said an interim superintendent will replace Deasy until a new superintendent is hired.

Members of the Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District board have agreed that condoms should be available at district high schools, but opinions on how they should be handed out ranged from a "help-yourself, fishbowl method" to requiring visits with a counselor who encourages abstinence from sex.

Neil Carrey has sometimes been critical of spending in the Santa Monica-Malibu school district. But now, he says, the district has done nothing wrong -- it's just not getting enough money from the state. "This is not like the boy who cried wolf," he said. "This is real." As a result of anticipated budget shortfalls, the Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District will ask voters -- by mail -- to support a parcel tax that could stave off teacher layoffs and maintain such classes as art and music.

Emulating a controversial practice at many colleges, two high-achieving public school districts in California are giving preference to the children of alumni. The Beverly Hills Unified School District and the Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District have adopted legacy admissions policies for children of former students who live outside their enrollment boundaries. The policies appear to be the first in the nation at public schools, education experts said.

Bowing to increasing pressure from parents, Santa Monica-Malibu district officials will transfer the principal and assistant principal of a middle school where a teacher was recently charged with molesting several of his students. Principal Tristan Komlos will be moved from her position at Lincoln Middle School to become principal of John Muir Elementary School, making her the fourth principal to leave the school in seven years.

A Santa Monica middle school teacher who allegedly molested five of his female students will face nine additional charges today involving three new victims, officials said. Thomas Arthur Beltran, 60, is expected to be arraigned today on the new charges, which allegedly involve incidents spanning from September 2000 to June 2004, said Jane Robison, a spokeswoman for the Los Angeles County district attorney's office.

The head of the public school system in Canton, Ohio, has been chosen to become the new superintendent of the Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District. Dianne Talarico, 49, who has been superintendent of the Canton City School District for five years, is to be officially appointed to her new job Thursday. The Santa Monica-Malibu school board chose her during a closed-door meeting Sunday, said the board's vice president, Kathy Wisnicki.

The superintendent of the Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District is planning to leave to take a new job in Maryland, district officials said Thursday. John E. Deasy, who now oversees a district of more than 12,000 students, was chosen to head the Prince George's County school district, which has more than 134,000 students. Santa Monica-Malibu district officials said an interim superintendent will replace Deasy until a new superintendent is hired.

A tally of the last remaining ballots in Tuesday's special election shows that a parcel tax measure for the Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District has won approval, the county registrar of voters said Thursday. The final tally was 12,146 yes votes, or about 68%, to 5,819 no votes, or 32%. The measure required two-thirds approval. On election night, it had only a 55-vote margin. The $225-a-year tax on each piece of property in the district is expected to bring in about $6.

The Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District has fallen two weeks behind schedule in completing reconstruction of Santa Monica High and is making contingency plans to have portable classrooms ready when school begins Sept. 4. District Supt. Neil Schmidt said work on the project has been going on for four years as part of a $100-million districtwide reconstruction program. Ralph Mechur, a member of a nine-member parental oversight committee, called the schedule tight.

Parents at Webster Elementary School in Malibu amassed about $300,000 in donations last year to pay for such extras as classroom aides and art, computer and gardening teachers. The PTA at Will Rogers Elementary School in Santa Monica was lucky to raise about $85,000 to pay for storytellers and other enrichment -- and to cover the unpaid cafeteria bills of children from poor immigrant families.

A tally of the last remaining ballots in Tuesday's special election shows that a parcel tax measure for the Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District has won approval, the county registrar of voters said Thursday. The final tally was 12,146 yes votes, or about 68%, to 5,819 no votes, or 32%. The measure required two-thirds approval. On election night, it had only a 55-vote margin. The $225-a-year tax on each piece of property in the district is expected to bring in about $6.