Protests Growing Against Plan to Ease Crowding

A handful of anguished students and parents pleaded Monday afternoon with Ventura schools Supt. Joseph Spirito and his staff to reconsider a proposed plan that would shift hundreds of eastern Ventura students from Buena High and Balboa Middle School to westside schools.

The impromptu meeting was a preview of what is likely to be a contentious debate at tonight’s scheduled meeting of the Ventura Unified School District Board of Education.

“We are quite disappointed that parents weren’t involved until this point,” said Arlene Morelli, whose eastern Ventura neighborhood would be affected by the plan.

Under the proposal, Morelli’s daughter, now in the seventh grade at Balboa Middle School, would be moved across town to Cabrillo Middle School for the eighth grade. The following year she would attend Ventura High.

The proposals cannot be amended before tonight’s meeting. But parents hope the board will allow more time to look at alternate proposals before a scheduled vote Feb. 27.

“They acted a little hastily,” said Judy Friedrich, whose son is a seventh-grader at Balboa. “We will try to come up with specific proposals and ask that the board allow more time to consider them.”

Spirito and his staff listened carefully to parents’ concerns but insisted that something had to be done to ease the severe overcrowding at Buena High and other east-end schools.

“We are between a rock and a hard place,” Spirito said. “If we don’t do anything, as superintendent I cannot guarantee the quality of education at our schools.”

The parents suggested bringing in more portable classrooms or returning to a junior high system as alternatives to busing students across town.

But Spirito said the classroom trailers would not alleviate crowding in the common areas, such as cafeterias and restrooms. And a return to the junior high system would require moving ninth-graders out of high schools and putting sixth-graders back in elementary schools--thus crowding classes in the lower grades.

Over the weekend, groups of parents began organizing against the proposal that was unveiled last Thursday.

Morelli gathered more than 20 parents at her home to discuss the redistricting proposal developed by a committee of school administrators and teachers.

“We have a petition against the proposal to change school boundaries,” Morelli said. “We all recognize that there is a problem with overcrowding, but we are urging the board to find other solutions. We are here to be part of that solution.”

Many of the individuals affected are particularly angry because they purchased their homes, in new housing tracts, based on existing school boundaries, she said.

“A lot of people are angry,” said Cheryl Hawes, who spent more than four hours on Sunday going door-to-door in her Pacific Breeze neighborhood. “We were going around explaining the issue to neighbors. We were showing them the newspaper articles.” Hawes said she collected 63 signatures of concerned parents.

Under the proposed plan, Buena students would be moved to Ventura High from three areas: the hillside communities of Skyline, Clearpoint, Ondulando and Hidden Valley; residential tracts between Foothill and Telegraph roads bounded by Tyler and Petit avenues, and a neighborhood south of Ventura College and east of Buenaventura Mall.

Students at middle schools who live in the tracts between Foothill and Telegraph roads would be shifted from Balboa to Cabrillo Middle School.

The plan is a stop-gap measure that would only temporarily ease the overcrowding at east-end schools. In the long term, a new high school and a new middle school will have to be built in the east end, officials said.

Some parents who plan to attend tonight’s meeting said they are still unsure about the details of the new proposal.

“I’m resting my judgment until I see the actual proposal,” said Cheryl Baldwin, who lives in one of the affected hillside communities. “This is a highly emotional issue for a lot of people. I think it is really important for everyone to listen.”

School board members responded favorably to the proposal when it was unveiled last week. But parents hope enough pressure may bring board members around.

“My experience with the district is that they may change their mind,” Baldwin said. “They may change the proposal.”

Four years ago the school board did just that, eliminating a plan to shift the students from some eastern Ventura hillside communities to Ventura High after strong protests from parents. Since then, though, the overcrowding in east-end schools has become more severe, while Ventura High and other westside schools are underused.

The Ventura Unified School District Board of Education meeting will be held tonight at 7:30 in the Cabrillo Middle School cafeteria, 1426 E. Santa Clara St., in Ventura.