Change in Middle School Boundaries

Last week the Las Virgenes School Board met with Agoura citizens to discuss overcrowding at Lindero Middle School. In the past, students from Sumac, Willow, Yerba Buena and White Oak elementary schools have gone to Lindero Middle School. With Agoura’s rapidly growing population, the school cannot accommodate all the students.

The school board heard citizens’ suggestions but were determined to relocate students from Sumac to existing facilities at A. E. Wright in Calabasas, approximately eight miles away. Citizens strongly opposed the board, offering other alternatives. Ideas raised but quickly dismissed by the board included a bond issue to construct a new facility, utilizing extra bungalows, splitting two of the elementary schools to house K-3 and 4-5 and changing all of the elementary schools to K-6. These alternatives would have allowed all students to be schooled in the Agoura area.

A primary objection to the board’s plan was that the students would be taken from the Agoura area to a school eight miles away. Besides the distance, the board stated that the curriculum at A. E. Wright was not on par with Lindero’s. Others were concerned with moving students in and out of social groups at the beginning and end of middle school.

Also, there was some concern that the board might decide to send these Agoura residents on to Calabasas High at the end of middle school, even further from the area and at a time when other friends and neighbors would be attending local schools of Agoura or Oak Park High. These teen years are difficult times for students and parents alike, without additional problems created by long bus rides and separation from friends and community.

Other parents were disturbed because they do not want their children on a bus for two hours each day, when some could have walked or ridden their bikes to Lindero.

As the word spreads around Agoura concerning the board’s decision, it will be interesting to see if the community accepts this assault on the Good Life.

DOROTHY BELLI,

SYLVIA GIARDINA

Agoura Hills