Parents Speak in Favor of Camarillo Unification

CAMARILLO —  Despite concerns that the move could harm racial balance and cost substantial money, several parents Thursday night pleaded with Pleasant Valley school trustees to move ahead with a proposal to unite all Camarillo schools within one district.

“I am in support of unification,” said Camarillo resident Jim Grant. “I did not hear anything tonight to cause us any alarm. . . . I think we ought to proceed and put together a task force to study unification. Camarillo needs to look at what’s best for Camarillo and Camarillo kids.”

Although many parents spoke passionately in favor of unification, a Sacramento lawyer hired by the Oxnard Union High School District said the proposal had “severe problems with racial and ethnic desegregation.” He urged Pleasant Valley to drop the proposal.

“While the folks in Camarillo may not care about that particularly, I can assure you that the state Board of Education does,” said lawyer Thomas Griffin, who once served as the state board’s chief counsel. “That is going to be a serious impediment.”

Long a topic of interest around town, unification would involve shifting control of the award-winning Adolfo Camarillo High School from the 14,000-student Oxnard district to neighboring Pleasant Valley School District, a system of 7,100 students that now operates only elementary and middle schools.

Unification proponents argue that the plan would increase local control over schools, eliminate student busing to Oxnard and help create a streamlined curriculum from kindergarten to 12th grade.

The parents and other Camarillo residents voiced their opinions at the Pleasant Valley school board meeting where two new, pro-unification trustees--Jennifer Miller and Ron Speakman--were seated.

At the meeting, trustees and the public took a hard look at a study prepared by educational consultant Terry McHenry, which examines the feasibility and ramifications of unification.

By late in the evening, trustees were still mulling over McHenry’s report and had taken no formal action.

In the report, McHenry calculated that removing the 2,900, mostly white Camarillo students who attend Adolfo Camarillo and Rio Mesa high schools from the Oxnard district would significantly change the racial balance of the remaining school system.

Without Camarillo’s students, the Oxnard district’s minority population would soar from its current 72% to 84%. The report also raises various financial concerns, including: Considering that Camarillo High is already at capacity, how would Pleasant Valley house all its students? And how would a new, unified district pay for the lifetime benefits promised to Oxnard High employees?

If unification progresses, these and other questions would be examined over two years by residents, a county committee on school district reorganization, the state Board of Education and, ultimately, local voters.

To move forward, unification advocates must gather signatures from up to 25% of the registered voters living in the Pleasant Valley district boundaries. The effort would also have to pass nine criteria of the state education board, including financing, racial balance and division of property.

Speakman said before Thursday’s meeting that he thought existing racial and financial concerns were “nonissues” that could be resolved.

Within a few years, Camarillo’s population growth will force the Oxnard district to build a second high school within the city--which would effectively separate white and minority students eventually, he argued.

As for the funding, he said Camarillo residents will pay for that, too, whether their tax dollars stay with the Oxnard district or wind up with a new, unified Pleasant Valley district.

“I personally think the concept [of unification] is a great idea,” Speakman said. “I want to know whether it’s feasible that the state would approve it. . . . Are these things deal-killers? If so, I don’t want to waste the taxpayers’ money by going any further. If not, and if residents support the idea, I think we should move ahead.”

Longtime Pleasant Valley trustee Val Rains--the top vote-getter in last month’s election for three seats--urged a careful examination of the process. She advocates creating a committee of Pleasant Valley and Oxnard officials to hash out the process.

“I think this is a very important issue, not something we should rush into,” she said before Thursday’s meeting. “We must know what we’re doing and whether it really benefits students and is economically feasible and instructionally efficient.”