By Jorge Casuso

July 19, 2024 -- The long and bumpy road towards dividing the Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District (SMMUSD) has hit a major obstacle months before the 13-year-effort seemed about to end.

On Thursday, District officials said they would oppose Malibu's "unexpected" and "baffling" decision to revive its 2017 petition to split from the district and halt negotiations that began two years ago.

By entering into mediation, the City of Malibu had placed its 2017 petition on hold, SMMUSD officials said, noting that County officials had found the petition did not meet the necessary criteria.

Since the petition "would impose devastating hardships upon students in the Santa Monica area, the District has no choice but to oppose this petition vehemently," District officials said Thursday.

School Board member Jon Kean said Malibu's decision to seek a vote on the 2017 petition came as the separation that has been decades in the making seemed to be coming to a close.

"After years of work we were less than three months away from forming two independent school districts that could provide similar programs to what exists today on day one of operation," Kean said.

"More work was needed to finalize the agreements but to walk away from a potential solution that meets the core tenets of our mediation and long held goals is the City's choice and it is unconscionable.

"In three months we could have achieved what community members have sought for decades."

SMMUSD Attorney David Soldani called Malibu's decision "baffling" and said the District "has no choice but to fight" the City's "attempt to disenfranchise SMMUSD students residing in Santa Monica.”

District officials said they remain willing to "reinstate the mutually agreed upon timeline and attempt to complete the unification process by the end of October."

But they added that cannot take place while the District must "fight a petition that has been proven to be unfair."

"If the City of Malibu tells the County Committee to hold the petition until after November the District would gladly return to mediation and work collaboratively to achieve unification" Kean said.

"But we cannot be the only side willing to do this work," Kean said. "Malibu wanted an independent district and the finish line was in sight.”

The Los Angeles County Office of Education Committee on School District Organization has been made aware of this unexpected decision by Malibu and will announce next steps in the petition consideration process, District officials said.

The sudden breakdown comes three months after School District and Malibu officials reached a revenue sharing arrangement ("Milestone' Reached in Efforts to Split School District," April 15, 2024).