Sausalito Marin City School District approves consolidation

The board voted 4-1 in favor of moving the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Academy middle school students from Marin City to Sausalito.

In a series of harshly contested split votes, Sausalito Marin City School District trustees agreed to consolidate classes for transitional kindergarten through eighth grade at the Sausalito campus beginning this fall.

The board voted 4-1 on Thursday in favor of moving the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Academy middle school students from Marin City to Sausalito to be able to pool and strengthen resources.

The decision was in line with the majority of public opinion reported at two in-person and one online forums and also in an online survey.

Board president Lisa Bennett, who voted for the TK-8 configuration, nonetheless said she was mindful that taking a public school out of Marin City was stressful from a historical perspective.

“Many promises were made to Marin City and the Black community,” she said. “What would taking out the school look like and feel to a community that has had a lot of things done to it?”

At the same time, Bennett and other board members said they needed to prioritize what was best for the students in terms of academic, social and emotional support, and a sense of community. The middle school in Marin City, in particular, has lost enrollment and parents have told the district they have “lost faith” in it, according to superintendent LaResha Huffman.

“We need to shore up the middle school,” trustee Caroline Tiziani said Thursday. “Our MLK kids need the support now.”

The move will create a TK-8 campus for the district’s 277-student Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Academy in Sausalito, while the Marin City campus would be mostly vacant except for preschoolers and the district office.

“From an education perspective, there is a value to keeping the school together,” trustee Bonnie Hough said.

The main school building in Marin City could be rented out for community services or perhaps revamped into a community center or recreation hub, trustee Lauren Walters said.

Trustee Alena Maunder cast the sole vote against the TK-8 configuration because she said she wanted to “maintain the two-campus model” and keep the middle school intact in Marin City. She said the district needed to get more engagement with Marin City families.

Maunder also cast one of two votes in favor of reversing preliminary layoff notices for two student success coaches at a cost of $160,000. The resolution failed, 3 to 2, and the success coaches layoffs will be made final.

Maunder was not pleased.

“First you take the school out of Marin City,” Maunder, the only Black trustee, told the other board members. “Then you vote to not hire back two positions with Black people in them.”

Maunder then stood up and walked out, saying she was leaving because she had a “hard stop” at 10 p.m.

Board members also split on three separate votes in favor of a reversal of layoff notices for two full-time teachers, full-time information technology specialist Nixon Diaz and a half-time food services employee at the Marin City campus.

The cost to add back those positions was $300,000 for the two teachers, $136,025 for Diaz and about $37,000 for the food service worker. Huffman said the district could get $9,000 a month back in a reimbursement grant for the preschool meals.

Maunder and Huffman clashed earlier in the meeting on the need to keep Diaz in his post as a full-time information tech specialist. The board ultimately voted 3-2 in favor of reversing his preliminary layoff notice in March, with Maunder voting no.

According to Huffman, Diaz has done more this school year to upgrade the district website, install and manage various software programs, oversee email, fix hardware and handle state and county mandatory reporting than all the other IT specialists hired in the past three to five years combined, she said.

“You can’t run a school district without technology,” Huffman said.

‘There were many things that were not in place when I got here,” she added. “In a very short time, these were all put in place.”

Maunder disagreed, saying that the IT job didn’t need to be full time.

“I think we can get the work done through outsourcing,” she said.

The 3-2 vote to hire back two teachers came after several teachers said they need the additional staff to avoid so-called “combo” classes. Combo classes refer to classes with a mix of students having widely divergent academic, social and emotional skill levels.

“There is nothing we need more than to bring back these teachers,” said Samantha Healy, a first-grade teacher.

Also, the extra staff on one campus would add “redundancy” if any employees are ill and there needs to be help in an emergency, science teacher Nathan Scripps said.

“Now, we are very brittle when someone’s out,” he said.

The Sausalito campus staffing plans also call for a new dean of students at no extra cost. Huffman said she is working on an “internal” plan to fill the job.

The cost of hiring back the teachers, Diaz and the food service worker can be covered within the district’s projected budget reserves for 2024-25, according to Gina Murphy-Garrett, the district’s chief business officer.

The district would still be able to maintain 5% of the district budget in reserves as required, she said.

Huffman said if the district is able to get a proposed parcel tax on the Nov. 5 ballot and the tax measure is approved by two-thirds of voters, all the tax proceeds would go to shore up education resources at the Sausalito campus.

“We’re the only school district in Marin without a parcel tax,” Huffman said. Aug. 9 is the deadline to place a measure on the Nov. 5 ballot.

Huffman said she is working with the district’s lawyers and a consultant to come up with a tax proposal for the ballot.

“We can afford this plan, which is in the best interests of students and teachers,” Huffman said, referring to the TK-8 consolidation in Sausalito. “If we pass a parcel tax, we can add more resources to achieve the goal of having a world-class school. We’re not there yet.”

The district is also building a new elementary school on the Sausalito campus. The project is being paid for with proceeds from a $41.6 million Measure P bond approved by voters in 2020.