Crowd Questions Plan to Redo Boundaries for Ventura Schools

About 150 parents attended a public hearing Wednesday, where many bombarded a panel of administrators from the Ventura Unified School District with questions about a controversial proposal to redraw school boundaries in the 15,000-student district.

In a 20-minute presentation at Balboa Middle School, led by Assistant Supt. Richard Averett, district administrators who helped draw the proposal showed maps outlining the district’s first major boundary realignment since the 1970s. The administrators explained how projected enrollment and transportation would change in the district.

Members of the audience were then allowed to ask questions and make suggestions to the eight-member panel. A Spanish-language interpreter translated remarks for a small group of parents at the front of the audience.

Many parents questioned whether the plan would work and whether one of its major goals--to allow more students in the 23-school district to attend neighborhood schools and to give them a chance to attend kindergarten through 12th grade together--is something that parents want.

“There are some advantages to the present system, because kids have a wider circle of friends when they get back together in high school,” parent Kerrie Roscoe said.

“I’m a parent who’s looking at 16 years of busing my children a long way,” said Jane McCord, whose children attend Poinsettia Elementary School. “I just don’t like it.”

Some parents suggested that the board do a survey on whether parents want their children to stay together throughout their school years. Other parents questioned whether a plan to close Cabrillo Middle School and develop it as commercial income property was workable, given limits on growth in the city and current water restrictions because of the drought.

Under the proposal, Cabrillo Middle School, which officials said is aging and has cracks in its foundation, would be closed and replaced by a new middle school. However, funding for the school depends on the passage of a bond issue on a city ballot, an idea the district is studying.

The site is “ill-suited to high-income housing” because of its location on Santa Clara Street, parent Bruce Englar said.

Other parents said that the district had put a lot of hard work into the proposal but did not share the information with parents, causing a lot of the confusion and anger over the plan.

Under the plan, officials estimate that 3,440 students would be assigned to schools other than those they now attend. Sixty-seven percent of those students would go to schools closer to their residences.

The proposal would cut the district’s $1.7-million annual transportation budget by about $180,000 a year, officials said.

The plan would also decrease the number of miles that elementary and middle school students are bused by a total of 420, although high school students would end up gaining a total of about three miles, officials said.

If adopted, the boundary changes would not go into effect before the 1992-93 school year, officials said.

Currently, about 4,300 students in the district are bused, both for racial desegregation and because, historically, the district has sent many students to schools that have space, whether they are closest to the student’s residence or not, officials said.

Another reason for the proposed changes, particularly at the high school level, is that the district’s enrollment is growing at a faster rate east of Victoria Avenue, officials said.

Although some students may live closer to Buena High, the easternmost of the two high schools, they must be bused to the more distant Ventura High to balance enrollment at the two schools, officials said.

Some parents argued that the plan leaves many questions unanswered, including the future of the proposal if the bond measure fails and how funding for special programs would change.

Some parents and teachers asked how another sweeping change currently being considered in the district--a switch to a year-round calendar--will be affected by the boundary proposal--and why the two issues are being considered at the same time.

Board members Terence Kilbride, Barbara Myers, May Lee Berry and Vincent Ruiz attended the meeting, but sat in the audience.