The Sausalito City Council is on the right track.
It has asked state Attorney General Xavier Becerra to provide the public with more information about ongoing closed-door deliberations regarding his office’s ruling that the Sausalito Marin City School District is violating state anti-segregation laws.
That is a serious charge and one that deserves a serious community discussion.
However, Becerra’s legal team and the district’s leadership — or part of that leadership — have taken that discussion behind closed doors.
Legally, in accordance with state open-meetings laws, the school board is entitled to be briefed and to discuss matters of litigation in so-called executive session.
It is also likely that whatever decisions they come up with — such as accord on a consent decree — will involve significant changes for the district and student enrollment at its two schools. That includes the district-sponsored charter school, Willow Creek Academy in Sausalito, which has about 400 elementary school students. Its enrollment is diverse.
The problem is the district’s traditional campus, the K-8 Bayside-Martin Luther King Jr. Academy in Marin City, has only about 150 students, largely from African-American households in Marin City, an example of geographic, social and educational segregation.
The attorney general’s conclusion was serious, but not surprising.
The most frequently proposed solution is to merge all those students into one school and onto a single campus.
But Sausalito residents do not want to lose their only local public school campus. Sausalito residents led efforts to create and support the opening of Willow Creek.
The City Council has been a staunch defender of Willow Creek.
Likely, Marin City residents prefer the recently renovated and improved Bayside-MLK campus, though about half of Willow Creek’s student enrollment is from Marin City.
Right now, coming up with a solution to this long-standing quandary is limited to closed-door discussions between Becerra’s team and the district’s leadership.
The City Council asked the Attorney General’s Office to hold a public forum to discuss steps for a proposed settlement.
The A.G.’s office declined, without any informative elaboration.
School board members who have attended the meetings with A.G. representatives have also been tight-lipped, other than suggesting that they have been warned by the state not to discuss any details of the private deliberations.
Perhaps our local state lawmakers, state Sen. Mike McGuire or Assemblyman Marc Levine, could provide some insight, particularly on why, for instance, the parents of children at Willow Creek and Bayside-MLK have no right to know what’s going on.
The Sausalito City Council doesn’t plan to let the matter drop, says Mayor Joe Burns. It shouldn’t. Willow Creek parents have already flexed their legal clout, suing the district over a preliminary budget move that would divert more funding to Bayside-MLK.
This is a longtime problem that needs to be resolved. Addressing the state’s ruling in a way that benefits the education and opportunities for each and every public school student in Sausalito and Marin City should be the top priority. That priority should reflect the public’s will, not Sacramento’s legal edict.
There should be room for open and fair public involvement. Becerra has offered little insight as to why this has to be handled in secrecy. Any solutions, to be truly successful, will need buy-in from the community.
Involving the public in discussions about constructive solutions would be a wiser approach to reach a decision that, ultimately, will require community support to be truly successful.
