Santa Monica Malibu Unified School District

Students at Santa Monica High School were focused Thursday on assemblies, class discussions and writing assignments fostering better race relations in the wake of an official-looking hate letter sent to about 700 Spanish-surnamed families. The mood on campus was calm, but some parents kept their children at home out of fear that violence would erupt.

Despite fierce opposition from Santa Monica residents, the Santa Monica-Malibu school board has approved a plan to open a high school in Malibu. The unanimous vote late Monday capped months of bitter debate that divided the Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District. Santa Monica parents charged that the school would amount to an elite academy for wealthy Malibu residents.

Santa Monica and Malibu voters ended their ballot on a yes note and approved a school district bond measure to repair decaying local campuses. Proposition ES, a $75-million general obligation bond measure to benefit the Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District, was approved by 74% of the voters, handily above the two-thirds margin needed.

Hunks of the stucco walls have fallen off, the paint is curling back, the heating system has a mind of its own, the pipes burst on occasion, and the carpeting--garish orange in some rooms, baby blue in others--is threadbare, stained and ripped. This fixer-upper is Santa Monica High School. The cost of the repairs: about $20 million.

UCLA has backed away from a controversial plan to move its highly touted experimental elementary school off campus and into the Santa Monica public school system, university officials announced Monday. The plan was abandoned in the face of intense protests from some parents and faculty from the Corinne A.

A delegation of parents flew into Sacramento Monday and persuaded State Supt. of Public Instruction Bill Honig to support their campaign to keep the University Elementary School on the UCLA campus and not move it into the Santa Monica public school system. Until Monday, Honig favored the move because he likes the idea of university-run lab schools in public school settings.

The president of the State Board of Education said Friday that UCLA's controversial plan to move its on-campus laboratory elementary school to Santa Monica results from an "ego trip" by Los Angeles attorney and businessman John E. Anderson. Anderson has given the university $15 million to build a new Graduate School of Management on the lab school site on Sunset Boulevard. Board President Joseph D.

UCLA will proceed with a controversial plan to move its prestigious laboratory elementary school to a nearby public school district, university officials announced Thursday. Going ahead with the move of the 108-year-old Corinne A. Seeds University Elementary School to the Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District is contingent on its independence being assured, said UCLA Executive Vice Chancellor Murray L. Schwartz. Chancellor Charles E.

The Santa Monica-Malibu School district and teachers' union members reached a tentative agreement for a two-year contract Thursday night. The agreement includes salary increases and improved health and dental benefits for all union members and better opportunities for teacher training, said June Lucas, president of Santa Monica-Malibu Classroom Teachers' Assn. Lucas and school board President Robert Holbrook said the negotiations, which began in April, were "friendly and constructive."

It was moving week in the Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District, complete with the usual hassles--items lost, broken or misplaced in the confusion of packing, carting and unpacking boxes. Dressed in jeans and sneakers, scores of district workers hauled the entire contents of the old Santa Monica-Malibu headquarters, including boxes of records, supplies and office furniture, to the new facility on 16th Street and Olympic Boulevard.