Plan to Bus 185 Pupils to Ventura High Angers Parents

VENTURA —  Some parents talked of moving away while others expressed relief Wednesday after the Ventura school board approved a plan to bus 185 incoming freshmen and sophomores from three east Ventura neighborhoods to cross-town Ventura High School.

The Ventura Unified School District Board of Trustees voted unanimously late Tuesday to approve the plan to relieve overcrowding at Buena High School.

The plan is a scaled-down version of a proposal that would have shifted as many as 460 high school and middle school students. It was offered as a compromise, sparing middle school students and incoming juniors at Buena from the move.

But the compromise did nothing to appease those who will be affected by the plan.

“It stinks,” said Dustan Howard, who has two daughters, a senior and a freshman, at Buena. “I call it the ax solution. It goes beyond the numbers and cuts right through the hearts and lives of the kids.”

During lunch break at Buena, Howard’s freshman daughter, Renee, was angry. She cried upon hearing that she would not be allowed to complete her education at Buena.

“I think it’s stupid,” she said. “They should keep the people who are already here. The board should have thought about it before the school year started.”

But among the students enjoying lunch in the sun, finding those affected by the move--fewer than 100 freshmen--was difficult.

At the board meeting, several parents warned the board that they may seek an injunction against the plan. “I have a call in to my attorney,” Howard said Wednesday. “But I don’t know what can be done legally.”

School trustees said redrawing attendance boundaries has been done before and is entirely legal.

“My feeling is that we are well within the boundary of what the education code permits,” trustee Velma Lomax said. In an interview Wednesday, she said she had received four calls in support of the board’s decision and one against it.

Some angry parents accused board members of having a hidden agenda--to balance the schools economically. The added students, who are from mainly affluent east Ventura neighborhoods, will be an economic boost for Ventura High and many of its underfunded extracurricular activities.

But Howard said the objective of balancing the schools may not become reality.

“I wonder how many of those kids will go to Ventura High,” Howard said. “Some may move to the Buena area.”

After the vote Tuesday night, Susan Loughman said she would move to a new home or take her kids to a private school rather than send them to Ventura High.

Loughman argued against the proposal, saying it would split families because the plan rescinds a policy that allowed siblings to automatically enroll in the same school.

But school officials said that while economic balance was a benefit of the plan, it was not the motivation.

“This was done because Buena was overcrowded,” Lomax said. “In doing so, yes, we are addressing economic diversity.” Lomax added she has a letter from Buena teachers saying the overcrowded conditions there “are an accident waiting to happen.”

Buena staff members are generally supportive of the plan, said Assistant Principal Cheryl Partin.

“At break time there are 2,300 children here,” Partin said. “Something had to be done.”

For some families, the plan is a mixed bag, allowing one child to stay at Buena and forcing another to move.

“This is not a child-friendly plan. It splits our family,” said Cheryl Baldwin, who has a freshman and a sophomore at Buena.

“My family will survive and will adjust,” Baldwin said, adding that she was relieved her elder son, at least, would remain at Buena. “But I’m really disappointed they didn’t do this for long-range.”

Many parents said the board can only solve the problem by building more schools.

The redistricting plan is a stop-gap measure that will alleviate overcrowding at Buena for three to four years. District officials said that next month, they will begin studying long-term solutions to the overcrowding problem at all Ventura schools.

Several parents who complained that school officials did not include them in the committee that drafted the decision hope they will be part of the long-term planning.

Ventura Supt. Joseph Spirito said coming up with the right plan was a difficult process.

“You never feel good when kids are saddened by a decision,” he said. “In time, I think people will accept the plan. We will do everything we can to make the transition easy for the kids.”

Under the plan, Buena students will be reassigned 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.