ALISO VIEJO : School Lines Shift in Numbers Crunch

School board members redrew the attendance boundaries for three Laguna Niguel elementary schools this week to balance the influx of students from this new, master-planned community.

Of the 348 students expected to enroll from Aliso Viejo in the fall, 103 will go to Crown Valley School, according to the new boundaries. The remaining 245 students will attend Moulton Elementary School.

In a further attempt to shift the burden of Aliso Viejo away from Moulton School, the new boundaries will also redirect about 110 students from two of Laguna Niguel’s oldest neighborhoods, the La Hermosa and Las Naranjas tracts, and from the Crown Niguel Apartments from Moulton to Crown Valley School. Another 39 students who live in the El Niguel Heights area near El Niguel Country Club, another of the city’s old neighborhoods, would be switched from Moulton to the new George White Elementary School.

“It’s not entirely what we wanted, but it’s a compromise,” said Kay Payton, a parent who lobbied to keep Moulton School from bearing the entire burden of new students.

Paul Haseman, a school board member from Laguna Niguel credited with devising the plan, said the moves were an attempt to provide some stability for Aliso Viejo students until a school is built in that community. Many Aliso Viejo parents had recently voiced concerns that their children would be bounced from one school to another each year.

“The key issue was what’s really fair in terms of parents’ expectations,” Haseman said. “We tried to balance the burden of growth being sure that no one school had to take on it all.”

Homeowners in Aliso Viejo and new parts of Mission Viejo are paying taxes of $145 to $773 annually, depending on the size of their home, for new schools, according to Bill Dawson, an assistant superintendent. But those fees will pay for a new $45-million high school first, with an elementary school to come by 1992 at the earliest.

The Aliso Viejo students who will attend Crown Valley School next fall come from the Windsong, Applause, California Reflections, Fieldcrest Villas and Aliso Viejo Villas neighborhoods.

Payton, one of the most vocal of the Laguna Niguel parents, said she and other parents are planning to picket Aliso Viejo sales offices, warning prospective buyers that no schools are ready in the new neighborhoods.

“We’re also looking into buying billboard space to let the buyers know there are no schools,” she said.