Miraleste High Will Remain Open

Miraleste High School will remain open as a result of an appellate court ruling Friday, and Palos Verdes Unified School District officials said they will immediately proceed with a plan to include the east-side campus in next year’s school operations.

The turnabout in Miraleste’s fortunes came when the state Court of Appeal in Los Angeles denied the peninsula district’s request for a stay of a lower court’s order that the school must remain open.

It ruled that Superior Court Judge Miriam Vogel’s May 10 order properly maintained the status quo--that is, continued operation of Miraleste--while the district undertakes an environmental impact report on the combined effects of shutting Miraleste and four other schools in the last eight years.

Press the Appeal

The decision does not end the district’s effort to overturn Vogel’s ruling. The Court of Appeal is also being asked to find that she erred in ruling that California law requires the school district to conduct an environmental assessment. That review process could take at least a year, and school officials said they will press the district’s appeal while Miraleste stays open.

“We were disappointed, of course, by the court’s ruling,” district spokeswoman Nancy Mahr said. “But we--and I’m sure the Miraleste parents as well--are glad that the uncertainty is over and now we can move ahead to next year’s tasks.”

The 9,800-student district had prepared an alternate student assignment plan and budget to prepare for the possibility that Miraleste might remain open. That “Plan B” will now be implemented, Mahr said.

Mahr said a letter will go out this week to Miraleste parents, explaining the plan for continued operation of the school, which serves 7th through 12th grades. The school board voted in November to close Miraleste to save operating expenses in the declining enrollment district.

Closing Miraleste would have saved the district about $1 million. The school board will meet Monday at 7:30 p.m. to set priorities for program cuts necessitated by the loss of savings. Mahr said the priorities will be useful if state aid increases beyond what is anticipated by budget planners.

Ted Gibbs, a spokesman for the East Peninsula Education Council, hailed the appellate court’s decision as a victory for Miraleste parents who fought to keep the campus open while they petitioned for permission to break away and set up an independent district on the east side of the peninsula.

‘Sense of Relief’

“There is a tremendous sense of relief, now that the uncertainty is over,” he said. Gibbs said the district has followed “a shortsighted policy” of closing east-side schools and selling the sites “to fund the district’s financial deficits.” Gibbs called it “a disastrous policy which squanders the public’s resources to pay for failed financial management.”

He said the court outcome makes up for a severe setback suffered by the group earlier this month, when a county education committee recommended against splitting the school district.

The group’s petition to secede has been forwarded to the state Board of Education, which is expected to make the final decision this fall.

In the meantime, Gibbs said, the east-side council is willing to work constructively with the school board on any proposals that are “educationally and fiscally sound--and equitable.”