The first of these two smaller meetings that comprised a fourth workshop occurred at Malibu High School and emphasized the remaining issues concerning the Malibu schools. The second took place at Samohi and focused on the more challenging campuses of the Santa Monica area, specifically Samohi and the Lincoln / Ocean Park campus. The Project Team felt that these two meetings were important opportunities to obtain a more in-depth and critical response from interested stakeholders, given the complexities of these particular Malibu and Santa Monica sites.

The Project Team presented ideas collected from the April 29th workshop to lead the discussions at these two meetings. Each table, facilitated by at least one member of the Project Team, was shown the appropriate foamcore model, including changes made by community members during the prior meeting, and was asked to provide reactions to the ideas generated at the April 29th meeting, make additional suggestions, and review the prioritized list of ideas for each school.

For example, at Malibu High School the prioritization changed only slightly from the 3rd workshop to the community meeting on May 31st. Despite the slight reordering of priorities, this additional reaction allowed the Project Team to have greater confidence in the earlier recommendations. Also, the larger group present at the additional meeting provided a more diverse representation that lent validity to the comments. In addition, the Project Team had the opportunity to examine shared problems and the potential for collaborative solutions to traffic, safety, and facility problems expressed by Cabrillo Elementary and adjacent Malibu High.

At the Samohi meeting three groups were formed. One was for the Lincoln / Ocean Park campus, and included representation from a variety of constituencies that use the campus. In particular, Olympic High School, Adult Education, and Pre-School were the main programs discussed, but attention was also given to Special Ed, Independent Study, and Infant Support. This was by far the largest showing we had seen from the Olympic campus in all of the four workshops, with over twenty people present. Priorities were recorded both by campus and by campus program, so that an in-depth idea of the entirety and complexity of issues was gained. Meanwhile, the even larger Samohi group was divided into two sections, one comprised of community members and the second comprised of administrators, teachers, and staff from the school. This allowed the Project Team not only to obtain some feedback on priorities, but also to focus on the facility needs as seen by those who work within the school every day. According to the Project Team’s interaction with Principal Ilene Straus, she was very happy with this opportunity.

Detailed notes by the facilitators at the meetings then served to assist the Project Team to develop more comprehensive lists of potential facility interventions at each school. Furthermore, these lists were incorporated into detailed spreadsheets that will ultimately be part of the database into which information about a wide variety of facility features will be fed. Generally, these include such topics as demolition, modernization and new classrooms, special features, infrastructure improvements, and site development.