The moment the Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District imposed a gag order on its departed Chief Financial Officer Winston Braham, it was out of order. But rather than admitting what was, by any measure, a serious error in judgment and correcting it, the District seemed bent on compounding it.

Through it all, District officials and the School Board have behaved as if they had special privileges because they were engaged in this community’s most vital undertaking: the education of our children.

The fact that California’s public schools in general and this District in particular have been woefully under-funded for years has added a kind of martyr’s aura to District officials. They have so little money, yet they soldier on, against all odds, and keep the schools going and manage to sustain some dazzling programs.

Over the years, this community has given the schools extraordinary support, contributing time and money, staging fund-raisers, approving parcel taxes and bond issues, and creating an arts endowment, among other things. And, with the support of the community, the City of Santa Monica, has annually allocated millions of dollars to the schools.

Unfortunately, District officials have too often seen the community’s commitment to the education of its children as license to do whatever they wish. But, in fact, the importance of the enterprise and the community’s commitment to it require that the people who run our schools and oversee the education of our children, be held to the highest standards.

The community’s high regard for the District and the School Board does not extend to City Hall and the City Council. After all, City staff insists on tying us up in red tape and the Council members are showboaters, mere politicians who care only about accumulating power.

So it was that when Council member Bobby Shriver questioned the gag order, he was treated to a chorus of naysayers and critics that included some of his Council colleagues and Lookout columnist Frank Gruber who accused Shriver of variously “grandstanding,” “humiliating” and “trashing” the School Board, and attempting to subvert its authority and dictate policy.

He didn’t do any of those things, of course, he simply asked a question.

Midway through the sorry sequence, as the School Board’s errors multiplied, Gruber began to flay it for its sins of omission and commission, but he continued to scold Shriver and fellow Councilman Bob Holbrook and Mayor Pro Tem Herb Katz, who had joined him in the call for an end to the gag order, for playing politics, and making a “mess” of things.

In fact, the District made the mess all by itself, It imposed a gag order on its former Chief Financial Officer. When asked by Shriver to lift the gag order so the Council, which was on its way to allocating $7.2 million to the District, could talk to him, the District stonewalled. Only after Shriver suggested that the Council might withhold $530,000 of the allocation until it heard from Braham did the District relent.

In the meantime, the Council learned that the District routinely imposed gag orders on parents of children with special needs who had to negotiate agreements to secure the courses of instruction their children needed. At that point, Katz moved and Shriver seconded a motion that the Council withhold the $530,000 until the District declared a moratorium on gag orders, but the motion failed to win the requisite four votes.

The School Board then sent a letter to the Council saying that it would conduct an “independent study” of its special education program and asking that the Council release the $530.000 immediately.

When Braham appeared before the Council, the entire School Board was in the audience.

Braham made a detailed statement describing his last days at the District in detail and answered a number of questions from Shriver.

Subsequently, District Superintendent Dianne Talrico and School Board President Kathie Wisnicki appeared in tandem at the podium, and repeated the proposal described in the letter – that the Council release the $530,000 immediately to the District, which, in turn, would conduct the study. The two officials also fielded questions from the Council. But neither of them could speak with any specificity about the special education agreements, and neither knew whether the imposition of the gag orders was a policy or a practice.

In fact, it’s not a policy, but a practice that was instituted by Assistant Superintendent Tim Walker who was hired by former Superintendent John Deasy to take charge of the District’s Special Education program. If Walker was present at the Council meeting, he chose not to speak.

During the Council discussion of the matter, Shriver, Holbrook and Katz
reported that they had received letters. emails and phone calls – some anonymous from people who were afraid to identify themselves — describing the gag orders that had been imposed on them and other problems, and asking for their help.

Shriver, Katz and Holbrook were then joined by a “reluctant” Ken Genser in passing a motion to withhold the $530,000 unless a moratorium on gag orders were declared and the study of the District’s special education program was made.

Because he works for the District, Council member Kevin McKeown couldn’t vote. The two other Council members – Mayor Richard Bloom and Pam O’Connor — said very little, beyond accusing their Council colleagues again of trying to dictate School Board policies.

Wisnicki was the only member of the School Board to address the Council. None of the other board members chose to speak — until the following night when they spoke at length to each other at a School Board meeting, during which, according to two news reports, they complained that they weren’t allowed to speak to the Council, ignoring the fact that anyone can speak at Council meetings by simply signing up. Though they did not challenge Braham at the Council meeting, at their own meeting, out of his presence, they accused him of mis-stating some facts.

Based on what Wisnicki and Talarico told the Council and what Wisnicki and other board members have said at board meetings, none of them seems to know what the rationale for the gag orders on parents is, except to say that they save the District money. But imposing silence on parents and frightening them seems a grotesque way to save money.

The District wants the $530,000 now, but. to date, it has refused to declare the moratorium on gag orders.

No one has been more critical of the bureaucrats and pols than w e have, and, given what’s currently on the City Hall drawing boards, we will probably continue to hammer them.

But, here and now, we commend Shriver, Holbook, Katz and their “reluctant” ally Genser for doing this community a great service.

Several years ago, the School Board asked the Special Education District Advisory Committee to develop a comprehensive Special Education program. It did and the Board approved it, but it was never implemented. When the gag orders were introduced, the Committee asked the Board to discontinue them, but their requests were ignored.

Now, thanks to Shriver and his three Council colleagues, a serious problem in our schools has not only been exposed, but will finally be addressed,

The next move is up to the School Board. It should declare the moratorium, begin the study and finally fix a program that has been broken for some time. Nothing less will suffice.