Five-year-old Syehr Spikes clings to his father Sergio Spikes as he is dropped off for his first day of kindergarten at Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Academy in Sausalito on Monday, Aug. 19, 2024. (Alan Dep/Marin Independent Journal)
After more than five years of upheaval, divisiveness and unrest, students, teachers and community members in the Sausalito Marin City School District came together Monday for the first day of school at the reconfigured TK-8 campus in Sausalito.“It’s a wonderful moment of unification,” school board president Lisa Bennett said. “It’s a joyful moment.”Bennett and other board members and staff held up welcome signs as 271 students and about 75 community members, parents and teachers gathered for a rally and celebration in the morning before classes started.
“We did this last year too,” superintendent LaResha Huffman said as she gazed over the crowd. “But it’s bigger this year because the middle school is here too. It’s exciting.”
The district was one of the first in Marin to start the 2024-25 school year. Another 16 Marin school districts with thousands of students are also beginning this week.
This fall is the first time that the entire district’s school, Dr. Marin Luther King Jr. Academy, is located on the Sausalito campus. Previously, the middle school was at a campus on Phillips Drive in Marin City and the elementary school was in Sausalito.
After months of focus groups, surveys, board meetings and debates earlier this year, the board voted 3-2 for a one-campus model in Sausalito. The idea was to save on the overhead of running two campuses and to pool staff resources and community spirit together at one site.
“Today is all about optimism and excitement for the future,” Sausalito Mayor Ian Sobieski said as he surveyed the festivities. “A lot of people worked very hard to make this happen.”
Members of the Sausalito City Council have frequently offered feedback — and some criticism — to the school district over the years, but ultimately the big decisions have been up to the school board. Now, council members, like everyone else, were celebrating new beginnings, Sobieski said.
“Kids are moving forward in life, and there is genuine enthusiasm and energy,” Sobieski said. “It’s a great day.”
District parent Kahaya Adams was one of the Marin City parents who had wanted to stay with the two-campus model during the discussions earlier this year.
Adams, whose son Khorrey Callahan, 10, started fifth grade on Monday, was initially against the one-campus model “because I felt it was like going backwards,” she said, referring to the loss of the Marin City campus, which had historically enrolled a predominantly Black student population.
In 2019, the state Attorney General’s Office issued a judgment against the district, charging its administration with running a segregated school. The district settled with the state, agreeing to a state order to desegregate the school within five years.
On Monday, Adams, a member of the Dream Team, a parent-school organization, said she felt more optimistic.
“I hope it’s going to work,” she said of the one-campus model. Khorrey had already been attending the elementary school in Sausalito, so he was used to the campus there, she said.
The Marin City campus building now houses only the district office and a preschool. Some local organizations hope to negotiate leases to rent the vacant spaces in the building, said Felecia Gaston, executive director of Performing Stars of Marin, an educational enrichment organization.
“We offer music, dance and theater classes,” Gaston said. “We have foundations, grants and private donations funding the program — we just need the space.”
She added that other community organizations such as Wise Girls, Play Marin, Marin City Climate Resilience, Women Helping All People, the Hannah Project and others might benefit from the space as well.
Students head to class on the first day of school at the Nevada Street campus of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Academy in Sausalito, Calif., on Monday, Aug. 19, 2024. (Alan Dep/Marin Independent Journal)
Paul Austin, founder of the nonprofit Play Marin, said he was starting the new year with a packed schedule. Volleyball is the first sport to get going this fall, he said.
“We’re here, and I’m excited about doing the work,” said Austin, who also will be working with students of color at Tamalpais High School in Mill Valley to provide support.
Phil Logan, community school director, said he is helping students and their families to connect with community resources, such as Community Action Marin for child care, the Marin City Library and other organizations.
“If we can give basic needs to the students and their families, it mitigates learning loss,” Logan said.
At the Sausalito campus pre-class rally, a free breakfast was served in the multipurpose room. Motown music blared as students got their classroom assignments.
In the background, another soundtrack was the unmistakable hum of machinery as bulldozers and excavators shoveled dirt in a massive, tiered construction area overlooking Richardson Bay.
By this time next year, the space will become the district’s new bond-funded elementary school if all goes as planned. That could mean another “first day of school” celebration in 2025.
“It’s a watershed time in their lives,” said Chris Liedblad, who came up from Los Angeles to see her granddaughter, Lucy Malone, start kindergarten. “It’s important to support it.”
Students arrive at the Nevada Street campus of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Academy on the first day of school in Sausalito, Calif., on Monday, Aug. 19, 2024. (Alan Dep/Marin Independent Journal)
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