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A proposal to transfer control of the El Cerrito High School educational radio station to a private non-profit has sent shockwaves through the West Contra Costa School District. 

The proposal, drafted by Paul Ehara, who is responsible for the district’s public relations, along with a district legal counsel, would turn over managerial control of the station, KECG 88.1 FM and 97.7 FM, to MORE Public Radio, an Oakland-based non-profit that provides blues, jazz and gospel programming for broadcast and Intern et radio stations. 

“It was a shock that we had not had more of a discussion around this issue until now,” said Glen Price, a school board member. 

It also raised concern among parents and the El Cerrito High School principal Vince Rhea, who said he was n ever informed about the proposed agreement. 

The proposal was drafted, according to Ehara, because Vince Kilmartin, the district’s associate superintendent of the operations division, wanted to find an organization to sponsor the radio station as a way to keep it alive. 

“The district needed to have some kind of an agreement with another organization that would be willing to operate the station at no cost to the district, and MPR was a good candidate,” Ehara said. 

They turned to MPR because the district already had an arrangement where MPR provided weekend and evening programming to fill the gaps when the school wasn’t using the station. On July 1 MPR assumed interim management responsibilities until an official agreement is reached. 

The station’s $68,3 92 budget was cut by the district in an effort to try and close a $16.5 million district-wide gap last year. Under the agreement MPR will operate the station for free, but the school will continue to own the station and therefore be able to maintain the m ain FCC license. 

In return, MPR will be allowed to raise money by seeking commercial sponsors to underwrite the programming they air. They will also receive the secondary FCC license for the station’s other dial spot at 97.7 FM, which is a translator sta tion that rebroadcasts 88.1, for a period of seven years. 

This will help MPR cover funding for the station, according to Prentice Woods, the CEO of MPR, because certain grants require the applicant to hold an FCC license. 

This is the first time MPR will be responsible for managing a station. Woods said the organization usually only provides programming to other stations. It also runs radio training classes for the youth in the Bay Area out of its Oakland office. 

Full control of the station means MPR wi ll manage the day to day operations of the “offices, studios, station transmission, and equipment, and the personnel, business, financial and legal affairs as they relate to the [lease management agreement].” 

MPR will also control the programming schedul e. 

Phillip Morgan, the current radio programming teacher who has run the station for the El Cerrito High School since it started back in the early nineties, said the deal gives too much power to MPR and threatens the school’s ability to program the stati on as it wishes. He also questioned the legality of the FCC license transfer. 

The school district now has to approach MPR to ask for programming time. Kids are only guaranteed programming time from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m., Monday through Friday. At a station th e school owns, said Morgan, kids should not have to ask for airtime. 

Woods, from MPR, said the school’s airtime needs will trump MPR’s programming schedule, but that promise does not appear in the draft agreement. 

The FCC could not be reached for commen t and a lawyer who represents the school and KECG said he did not have enough information to comment about whether the district could transfer the FCC license for 97.7 FM to MPR. 

In the meantime, students who ran programs outside the allotted 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. spot are still waiting to see if they get their shows back. Students Daniel Tureck and Kayvahn Steck-Bayat, who ran “The Dose,” which played hip-hop from around the world during what they referred to as the homework spot, or 3 p.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Friday, are among them. 

“This is where I discovered what I want to do,” said Tureck, who had an internship with Youth Radio in Berkeley last year and is pursuing an internship with 92.7 FM, a Bay Area hip-hop station.  

Tureck said he does not wa nt to be in the position of having to ask for his show back. Instead, he said the slot should be available, as it was when the school ran the station. He plans to advertise the next school board meeting during the school’s airtime because he wants to enco urage students to turn out to protest the proposed agreement.