The state Attorney General’s Office has determined that the Sausalito Marin City School District “violated and has continued to violate the California Constitution and anti-discrimination laws with respect to Bayside Martin Luther King Jr. Academy” in Marin City.

In a letter to the district dated Tuesday, Deputy Attorney General Garrett Lindsey wrote that “our office has determined that Bayside MLK Academy is a racially segregated school, and that the district possesses the facilities and resources to operate a non-segregated school.”

Lindsey requests in the letter that the district superintendent, its counsel and several board trustees meet with his office on Dec. 21 to “discuss the steps we will be requiring the district to take to remedy the segregated and discriminatory conditions.” He asked the district to get back to him by next Wednesday to arrange the Dec. 21 meeting.

District Interim Superintendent Terena Mares said Thursday that copies of the letter would be available at Thursday night’s board of trustees meeting. However, because the state’s letter is not on the agenda, there would be no board discussion about it. She said she will schedule a special board meeting before Wednesday so that trustees can determine who will be attending the Dec. 21 meeting with the state. The date of the special board meeting was not yet available.

Thursday’s meeting was set for 6 p.m. at Bayside Martin Luther King Jr. Academy, 200 Phillips Drive, Marin City. A swearing-in ceremony for new board member Bonnie Hough and re-elected incumbent board members Josh Barrow and Ida Green was planned for 5:45 p.m. just before the open session.

Mares said she had no advance notice that the attorney general’s decision would be released this month, although she and others in the district knew an investigation was in progress.

“We’ve known the attorney general was investigating the district for the past two years. We anticipated at some point in time there would be a response from the investigation, but we didn’t know when,” said Mares, Marin County’s deputy superintendent of schools who was assigned in December 2016 to oversee the Sausalito Marin City district — and then in July took over as interim superintendent after then-superintendent Will McCoy resigned.

Barrow, who is board of trustees president and a parent of children at Sausalito’s Willow Creek Academy charter school, said he would decline comment until after the Dec. 21 meeting when he finds out what steps the state will be requiring. The independent charter school — which has its own board — is overseen by the district, but the district has no governing power over it.

Green, a strong Bayside MLK Academy backer, also said she wanted to see what the state had as evidence for the alleged violations before she made any definitive comments.

“I just want to hear more from the attorney general in regard to the statements in the body of the letter,” Green said Thursday. “This is serious. It’s clear we have to come together and see what corrective measures need to be taken.”

Lindsey, contacted Thursday, referred all comment to the attorney general’s press office, but a spokesman was not immediately available for comment. However, his letter referred to a string of “evidence” showing discrimination against the Marin City school.

“The evidence gathered during our investigation demonstrates that the district established Bayside MLK Academy with the knowledge that it would likely be racially segregated, and Bayside MLK Academy has been maintained as a racially segregated school,” Lindsey’s letter states. “Moreover, the evidence shows that Bayside MLK Academy was established with the intent that it would serve a majority non-white community and it would generally not serve the majority white city of Sausalito.”

The Attorney General Office’s probe started in the fall of 2016, just after a state Fiscal Crisis and Management Assistance Team report was issued in August saying the Sausalito Marin City School District board had focused too much attention on Sausalito’s Willow Creek Academy charter school — which has its own board — while neglecting Bayside Martin Luther King Jr. Academy. That characterization has been vehemently denied by the board and charter school.

In response to the report finding, however, Marin County Superintendent of Schools Mary Jane Burke contacted State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Torklakson to ask if there was a common law conflict of interest issue with some district trustees who could be seen as favoring the charter school. Torlakson, in turn, referred the matter to the state Attorney General’s Office. Because of that, two of the district’s five board of trustees members were advised by their attorneys to recuse themselves from any board decisions involving allocation of resources — such as the district budget. Those recusals were mentioned as a source of much discord during the recent board elections.

Burke on Thursday said the attorney general’s letter validates the findings of the FCMAT report — and places the weight of law behind them.

“I am thrilled that this (Attorney General Office’s) report has finally been issued,” Burke said in a telephone interview. “This letter identifies, once and for all, the issues of segregation, as well as the excess resources that were allocated to Willow Creek Academy, and confirms the accuracy of the FCMAT report.

“The attorney general will now be requiring the district to make the changes necessary to make sure that the Bayside MLK students get the educational resources that they deserve,” Burke said.

According to Mares, investigators from the Attorney General’s Office conducted a series of in-person interviews at the district in the fall of 2016. Since then, however, all of the inquiries have been by telephone. Mares said the state office has monitored the district’s board meeting agendas and video recordings over the past two years.

“If they saw something on the agenda or in the video, they would call and ask about it,” she said.

Tuesday’s letter went beyond the initial issue of common law conflict of interest and deep into allegations of breaking state anti-discrimination laws and violating the state constitution. Mares said she had no word on potential consequences, but she said the issue now has everyone’s attention.

“Whenever the state’s highest law enforcement officer calls you out for violations,” she said, “it’s serious.”

This story was updated at 1:30 p.m. Dec. 14 regarding financial data from the FCMAT report.