Marin City, Sausalito have good choices

To say that the Sausalito Marin City School District has faced a challenging year would be an understatement.

The district was the target of a state investigation that found that its Bayside-Martin Luther King campus is in violation of constitutional protection against racial segregation. A legal agreement with state Attorney General Xavier Beccera gives the district five years to resolve this untenable state of affairs.

It is about time. It is a situation that past school boards, in promoting a system of two distinctly different schools — one in Sausalito and one in Marin City — have allowed to worsen to a level where the state stepped in.

The current board appears to be making impressive progress in correcting the problem, with a goal of unifying the two campuses. Voters’ decision in 2018 to change the board’s majority away from one that had deepened the divide between the Willow Creek Academy charter school and Bayside-Martin Luther King also helped put the district on its current path.

It needs to stay there.

But a lot more work needs to be done in fulfilling the promise of the district’s plan to create a unified system that offers a top-notch public school to which parents will send their kids.

Instead of having two kindergarten-through-middle schools, the district plans to unify the programs, creating a continuum of grades across its Marin City and Sausalito campuses.

On the Nov. 3 ballot, voters will be asked to elect two new trustees.

Debra Turner and Caroline Van Alst are both retiring from the board. Turner’s election in 2016 helped change the board, which had been tilted in favor of Willow Creek.

The field of candidates include Lisa Bennett, a certified public accountant and activist; Jennifer Conway, a business executive and school volunteer who is making her second bid for a seat on the board; Alena Maunder, a registered nurse and active parent volunteer and Yasmine McGrane, a local business owner and community volunteer.

Each offers experience and perspectives that qualify them for the board.

The IJ editorial board’s recommendations are Maunder and McGrane, who are both parents of district students and offer a balance of viewpoints and community experience that should prove helpful to the board as it steers the district through the arduous path of necessary change.

In addition, both are parents of local school kids. The board needs trustees who actually have children in district schools. Parental support is critical in building confidence — and enrollment — in a unified school.

Maunder is a parent of a Willow Creek student and on the school’s board. She also serves on the district’s unification task force. She and Conway, a Willow Creek parent and a regular attendee at boardmeetings, are running as a two-candidate slate, but that’s not what the district needs right now.

Maunder is also Black and a Marin City resident, a combination the board needs.

McGrane is a Sausalito resident who has been active in local youth sports leagues and as a parent volunteer in the district. She also is a member of the superintendent’s communications committee.

McGrane says she is “a positive leader and collaborative bridge-builder.” The district needs both. Her enthusiasm for children and education is obvious and she says she would be an “independent” voice on the board, not linked to any political slates.

Bennett’s experience in civil rights activism also could help bridge the gap needed to build a truly unified school system, but this election is an opportunity to bring more parents of district students into the mix of the school board and its decisions.

In 2018, district voters sided with resolving the racial and community divides between its two schools. On Nov. 3, voters will again have a say in deciding the composition and direction of the board. The IJ recommends AlenaMaunder and Yasmine McGrane.