Manhattan Beach School Board Votes To Extend Term By 1 Year

MANHATTAN BEACH, CA -- The Manhattan Beach Unified School District Board of Trustees have voted to extend their term for one extra year to comply with a state law.

The board members voted at its March 1 meeting to extend the terms so that school board elections would align with the state's. The vote means that this year's election will be canceled. School board elections will be held in 2018 and the one scheduled for 2019 will be moved to 2020.

The move was necessary to comply with Senate Bill 415, which required municipalities and school boards to have their elections sync up with the state's if their voter turnout was at 25 percent fewer than the state average in the past four elections.

The bill, which was signed into law by Gov. Jerry Brown in 2015, required the district to have a system in place to sync up with the statewide election by 2020. The district has two options, either to extend the current term by one year or have the next two terms be five years long.

Several South Bay school districts have opted to extend the current term one extra year. MBUSD is just the latest to make the move.

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