District may avoid school-zone shift

The Newport-Mesa Unified School District may not end up shifting

attendance areas in the Corona del Mar zone next year, due to a large

number of children found ineligible to attend Newport Coast

Elementary School this fall.

Susan Astarita, the district’s assistant superintendent of

elementary education, said Tuesday that the district had found 56

children enrolled last year at Newport Coast Elementary who lived

outside the school’s attendance area. With those children being

diverted to their own neighborhood schools this fall, Newport Coast

may not have the overcrowding problem that it thought it had.

Astarita said the district would make its final recommendation on

the Corona del Mar zone to the school board next month but that she

expected Newport-Mesa to maintain the status quo.

“We reserve the right to watch enrollment over the next few

years,” Astarita said. “Our goal was really to begin a dialogue with

the community, and I think we’ve achieved that.”

In October, Newport-Mesa formed a study group to examine

demographics at Newport Coast Elementary, where enrollment had risen

sharply since the school opened in 2001. Ultimately, the district

issued a report in May proposing to move some neighborhoods in

Newport Coast Elementary’s attendance area to Lincoln Elementary

School, and to shift some Lincoln neighborhoods to Eastbluff

Elementary and Harbor View Elementary.

The plan drew protests from a number of parents who did not want

their neighborhoods to be split into different school attendance

areas. When some questioned whether all of Newport Coast Elementary’s

current students lived within the school’s boundaries, the district

asked parents in May to provide three proofs of residence to keep

their children enrolled there.

The 56 children who can’t attend Newport Coast Elementary may

eliminate the need for the rezoning plan, at least for the moment.

Jane Garland, spokeswoman for the district, said that most of the

children’s families had lived or stayed within the Newport Coast

boundaries in the past and not updated their information.

“There’s a number of different reasons,” Garland said. “Some lived

in Newport Coast in the past and just never changed their address, or

they were staying in a hotel or motel in Newport Coast while they

were having a house built in Irvine.”

Some of the 56 children, Garland said, resided in areas completely

outside the Newport-Mesa district. She praised the community for

raising the proof-of-residence issue in May.

“I think that was a very important thing that the parents brought

to our attention,” Garland said. “It worked out well because we

learned things we did not know.”

If the district decides not to pursue the plan, Garland and

Astarita said, its main concern will be increasing enrollment at

Eastbluff Elementary, which has suffered from lack of students in

recent years.

In June, Eastbluff parents petitioned the district asking

administrators to find ways to boost the school’s population.

This summer, Newport-Mesa advertised on its website for

intra-district transfers to Eastbluff, which reopened in 1999 to help

accommodate the Bonita Canyon housing development.

Astarita said that about 40 children had transferred to the school

for this fall, and that the district had added two new teachers to

the staff as a result.

In addition, the school has added a new science and technology

classroom for this fall and purchased laptops for its older students.

“Parents were given a choice, and they decided they wanted to come

to Eastbluff,” said Lauren Young, co-president of the school’s Parent

Teacher Assn.

“We’re growing, and we’ll continue to grow. Choice is the key.”