Amid lawsuits, state scrutiny and racial strife, the beleaguered Sausalito Marin City School District is, at the same time, almost ready to unveil an educational makeover at its Marin City campus that could restore what was once a stellar player in Marin academics.

District trustees are set on May 9 to approve the final draft of a six-point “vision plan” for the TK-8, 110-student Bayside Martin Luther King Jr. Academy. The school, which enrolls primarily students of color or those from low-income families, has been labeled “segregated” by the state Attorney General’s Office, test scores have dropped over the past decade, teachers have left or been laid off and at least 175 Marin City students have chosen to transfer to Willow Creek Academy, a 420-student charter school in Sausalito that is authorized by the district.

That unhappy picture is set to change if the intentions of the vision plan’s Community Action Committee, which worked on the project for almost a year, are realized. The vision plan aims to make Bayside MLK great again — as it was in 2008 when it was named a California Distinguished School — and perhaps woo Marin City students back to their neighborhood school.

“The elements of the vision plan are not just elements that meet the needs of poor kids,” said Terena Mares, the district’s interim superintendent. “They’re not just elements to meet the needs of kids of color. We believe very strongly that we built this proposal, this vision, around what meets the needs of every child, no matter what race, what class they come from.”

Among other items, the plan calls for a “community school” to be established, with a full-time community school manager to network among neighborhood partners and nonprofits and with principal David Finnane. The community school would be a resource for both students and their families.

“Our goal is to have the vision plan in place by August (when school starts),” Finnane said. “We’d like to have the community school manager in place right away, and then do training over the summer.”  Other segments call for a focus on “mindfulness” in all classrooms, culturally relevant education materials and lessons, attention to social-emotional learning, strategic arts and music exposure, student success coaches and “tier 2” academic interventions by trained specialists in English language arts and math.

“The vision is built around assets that we see in our kids and families, the promise that we see in them every day when they come to school,” Finnane said. “I think it’s important that all of us here focus on the assets that they have so we can build from that platform, rather than just looking at what their needs are and looking at them from that arena.”

Finnane, who transferred to Bayside MLK last fall after 18 years with the Ross Valley School District, told trustees in March that he is already seeing improvements in test scores as some of the ideas in the vision plan were already in place. Student scores in reading that met or exceeded the target rate rose to 61 percent in March, up from 39 percent in September, he said.

Shirley Thornton, a member of the committee who worked on the vision plan, said she was “excited” it was close to being put in place.

“I’m excited that we have at last understood that our students are capable, and, given the proper resources, they can be successful,” said Thornton, a former district board member and an administrator of the area Center for Excellence in Arts. “If we can sustain what David and Terena are trying to do, we could be back to being a California Distinguished School.”

Laura Cox, executive director of Bridge the Gap College Prep in Marin City and a Community Action Committee member, said she was eager for the community school manager to get on board.

“This is incredibly important,” she said of the new post. “There are a lot of resources in the community, and with this person, it will align all the resources to help the students with enrichment activities and achieving academic success.”

Cox also said she was particularly excited about the student success coaches and the specialists offering reading and math assistance.

“I think (the coaches and specialists) will provide the resources the school needs to start moving the needle toward school success and academic achievement,” Cox said.

Finnane said more than 40 people have applied for the community school manager position. The job pays $65,000 to $91,400 annually.

The vision plan proposal comes as controversy continues over the state attorney general’s findings released in December that prior boards of trustees for the district were dominated by those with Willow Creek interests, and that spending decisions favored the charter school at the expense of Bayside MLK. Although those issues are in dispute, supporters of Bayside MLK say they experienced a decline.

“We lost counselors, we lost a science teacher, a math teacher, art and music programs,” Thornton said. In 2013, trustees voted to move the K-5 Bayside school, then adjacent to Willow Creek, to Marin City to share space with Martin Luther King Jr. Academy, then a middle school.

The district had to build modular units to absorb the elementary school into what became the TK-8 Bayside MLK. Willow Creek, which has its own board of directors but also has representation on the district board, was also K-8 since its founding in 2001. A 2016 report from the state Fiscal Crisis and Management Assistance Team said that district trustees at the time were hurting minorities by focusing resources on the charter school — an opinion the charter school disputes.

The current district board, which is now a 3-2 majority of members with Bayside MLK interests, has been meeting in closed session for weeks to discuss a response to the attorney general’s findings. The state is threatening a possible lawsuit over alleged violations of state anti-discrimination laws based on the actions of the prior boards.

Board member Josh Barrow, who lives in Marin City but who has children at Willow Creek, has recused himself from any board meetings due to alleged conflict of interest.

Mares on Thursday declined to comment on the talks with the Attorney General’s Office or on any plan to address the alleged bias violations. She said she did not know when the issue would be resolved.

Some community members have called for a merger of Bayside MLK and Willow Creek. Willow Creek supporters, who are suing the district over financing in the 2019-20 budget, say their school, which is only about 40 percent white, fosters diversity and desegregation and deserves better financing because they serve 80 percent of the district’s student population.

Mares said the vision plan was “not focused on the issue of racial segregation” and was on a separate track from the politics swirling around the state, the district and and the charter school.

“As far as we’re concerned,” Mares said, “if there’s a merger, and we have two strong schools, then the merger (result) will be even stronger.”

NOTE: This story was updated on Tuesday, April 30, 2019, to correct information about Willow Creek Academy’s earlier status as a K-8 school.