Boundary Plan Cuts Students’ Bus Mileage : Ventura: Elementary and middle schools are targeted. About $180,000 would be saved annually.

Elementary and middle school students would be bused a total of 420 fewer miles a day under a proposal to change school boundaries in the Ventura Unified School District, according to a district report issued Wednesday.

That would translate into a savings of about $180,000 a year, more than 10% of the district’s $1.7-million transportation budget, the report showed.

Most of the savings would occur at the middle school level, where the students would be on buses for 268 fewer miles, the report said.

The redistricting plan calls for some middle school students from Anacapa and Balboa to be sent to a proposed new middle school.

The plan also calls for aging Cabrillo Middle School to be closed and all its students to be sent either to the new middle school or to Anacapa.

The number of miles that elementary students would ride buses would decrease by 154.75 miles, according to the report.

For high school students, however, there would be a three-mile increase in the total number of miles spent on buses.

Despite the district’s projected savings, some parents remain opposed to the plan.

Chris Will, who has children at Poinsettia Elementary and Buena High schools, said a committee of parents is working on an alternative to the plan to present at public hearings that will begin next week.

The savings “is not a huge amount of the budget, really,” Will said. She said the district is adding to transportation costs in her neighborhood. She said this is because some students who now walk or car pool to nearby schools will have to be bused or find other transportation to their new schools under the plan.

“They’re creating transportation routes from Ventura High School to the hillside,” Will said.

Parent Al Van Wagner said the district should try to reduce busing even further or eliminate it altogether.

“They should plan so that the only kids that are going on buses are kids from outlying areas where it isn’t practical for them to ride their bike or walk to school,” Van Wagner said. “I’m just resentful that they should pick anybody’s kids up that are close to a school and take them somewhere else.”

But district officials have said a goal of the plan is to reduce busing overall in the 15,000-student district. Officials estimate that 3,440 students will be transferred under the plan.

According to the report, if the proposed changes are adopted, the district would cut miles from most of its bus routes, except for students from several areas. Those include middle school students from the Pierpont and Lincoln areas who would be bused to Anacapa instead of Cabrillo, and high school students who would go to Ventura instead of Buena.

The first of four public hearings on the boundary changes is scheduled for 7 p.m. Wednesday at Balboa Middle School.