Updates on City Programming at SMMUSD Facilities
May 19, 2021 10:48 AM
by Lane Dilg
In response to the FY 2021-2023 Proposed Biennial Budget, we have received a number of questions from parents of children enrolled in SMMUSD. The City of Santa Monica is proud of our strong relationship with the school district, which is one of the many partnerships in our community that leads Santa Monica to be consistently ranked as one of the best places to live in the United States.
As many of you know, while our community has been fortunate to have among the highest vaccination rates and lowest COVID case rates in LA County, the economic impacts of the pandemic have deeply impacted our local economy. Public health related shutdowns and changes to the way we work and live resulted in hundreds of millions in lost City revenue over multiple fiscal years, which required us to reexamine all City operations in order to cut tens of millions from our annual budget while seeking to maintain first-class City services. City revenues are currently stable and poised for a strong recovery; but this recovery is not immediate, as many of the pandemic’s impacts on, for example, business travel, entertainment and tech office work, retail shopping, and international tourism will be longer lasting.
We are pleased that despite these impacts, our partnership with SMMUSD remains exceptionally strong. We want to provide you with information here so that you can understand the FY 2021-2023 Proposed Biennial Budget as it relates to unique City programs at SMMUSD facilities.
Crossing Guard Program
The Santa Monica Police Department’s Traffic Service Unit continues to prioritize the safety of all our elementary and middle school students through its Crossing Guard Program. The proposed FY 21-23 Biennial City Budget includes funding for the crossing guard program at its current locations for the upcoming two school years. These current locations are reduced from prior years to align more closely with programs in peer cities. The current locations were determined through careful safety analysis by the Police Department’s Traffic Service Unit and the City’s Safe Routes to School Program. An interactive map is available with these crossing guard locations. The PTA has provided a list of fourteen additional locations where crossing guards are desired. The Police Department’s Traffic Service Unit will continue to work closely with SMMUSD and the Safe Routes to School Program to analyze these additional locations and to ensure students are able to safely access their local school.
CREST Club & CREST Enrichment
The City continues to work to ensure that all children in Santa Monica can learn and thrive. CREST Club, which provides after school childcare for working parents, as well as summer camps, and CREST Enrichment, for students in elementary school, which can be flexibly adapted to change between indoor and outdoor offerings, arts and physical activities, etc. have been ongoing during the pandemic and will continue in the next school year. Signups for CREST Camps for this Summer are now open and available here. For the upcoming summer, the District’s Child Development Services (CDS) is also pleased to offer Coastal Kids summer camp for children in grades TK-3. Please email SAP@smmusd.org for more information regarding Coastal Kids.
Elementary and Middle Sports
The City and SMMUSD have long been in discussions about how SMMUSD might offer elementary and middle school sports, allowing the school district direct control over the program and offering greater coordination of sports programming through the K-12 years. Since the City’s budget process, the City has been supporting SMMUSD as it has engaged in conversations with a potential strong operator for such a program, and the City’s Proposed FY 2021-23 Biennial City Budget includes $100,000 of support funding for the next two years to ensure that our district’s sports program is viable and able to include all students.
Access to Playgrounds
In the face of revenue impacts of the pandemic, the City has maintained its commitment to agreements pursuant to which the City is anticipated to provide approximately $25 million annually to the District. Pursuant to these agreements, Santa Monica families have access to schoolyards for outdoor play on weekends and school breaks through the Playground Partnership program, which has offered this important outdoor space during the pandemic and will continue this summer and next school year. Information about Summer playground access is available here.
In 2020 and 2021, when schools were not fully open for instruction, we were grateful to SMMUSD for making special arrangements to allow community access to elementary school yards not only on weekends and school breaks but also during after school hours. This allowed children learning at home more space to play outside after school. Now that LA County has entered the Yellow Tier and schools are fully open for instruction, supervised after school care for students has resumed through SMMUSD’s Child Development Services office, Santa Monica Boys & Girls Club, and the City’s CREST programs, which has required SMMUSD to discontinue this afternoon community use of school yards. SMMUSD is in the process of evaluating how to open elementary campuses in the late afternoon through a potential program would allow families to enter campus beginning at 4:30 p.m. until dusk. Parents/guardians would be required to be present to supervise their children for the entire time.
Questions have also been raised about the City’s prior CREST Playground Access program, a separate program under which the City hired as-needed staff to supervise SMMUSD children during outdoor after school play. The City ended this program in its 2020 budget process for reasons including the unusual nature of the program and recommendations of our outside youth safety consultant Praesidium that would have required programmatic changes and increased expense for the program, if continued.
We know that after school play and childcare are critically important for our families, and conversations remain ongoing about alternative models to allow our children to get out and play afterschool during the 2021-22 school year. As these discussions continue, the City remains committed first and foremost to the safety of our children; and we will need as a community to come together to explore ways to meet family needs with programs that are consistent that current best practices for child safety.
We have also received questions regarding City splashpads for the summer. The Annenberg Community Beach House splashpad and courtyard will open June 15 and we also anticipate that the pool will welcome patrons beginning July 1 as proposed in the Interim City Manager’s FY 2021-2023 Proposed Biennial Budget.
We understand the value of these programs to our children and the strong interest from SMMUSD families regarding the future of these programs. We thank you for your continued partnership as we work together to find viable solutions to meet these needs and others spanning across the community.
Authored By
Lane Dilg
Interim City Manager