Long Beach : School Board Will Retreat to Island for Weekend Talks

The Long Beach school board is having a two-day retreat this weekend and the public is welcome to attend if anyone wants to go to the trouble of boarding a boat, then a bus and possibly camping out.

To sit in on discussions involving the future of the Long Beach Unified School District, those who are interested must first board a boat around 7 a.m. Friday to Avalon, then take a bus for a 1 1/2-hour trip across Santa Catalina Island to Two Harbors, where the five-member board will meet all day Friday and Saturday morning. The only lodge at Two Harbors has 11 rooms and it is booked, so guests can either reserve a cabin and bring their own sheets and towels--and share shower facilities--or they can pitch a tent nearby.

“That’s an awfully faraway place to go for a retreat,” said Alan Lowenthal, president of the activist watchdog group Long Beach Area Citizens Involved. “It’s an open public meeting on the other side of the world.”

District spokesman Richard Van Der Laan defended the board’s choice, pointing out that holding the retreat in Two Harbors gives parents there the chance to listen to school board discussions. Catalina schools are part of the Long Beach district.

This is the district’s third annual retreat, according to Van Der Laan. The board met in Laguna Beach last year, and in Long Beach the previous year, he said.