Plans OKd for New Elementary School : Thousand Oaks: Conejo Valley officials say the $4-million facility would be the most technologically advanced in the district.

The Conejo Valley Unified School District has approved initial plans for a $4-million elementary school in Thousand Oaks that would accommodate up to 600 students.

The school, to be built at Knightsbridge Avenue and Whitechapel Place would be the most technologically advanced in the district, officials said.

“It will be equipped for computers in each classroom so that we don’t have to go back later and tear up everything to put them in,” said Dolores Didio, a member of the school board.

Representatives of the Los Angeles-based architectural firm of Flewelling & Moody last week presented the board with blueprints that call for a 52,000-square-foot, U-shaped building with 21 classrooms and a central courtyard. More detailed plans will be presented once board members decide next spring when to build the school.

The school will also contain an oversized classroom with capacity for about 30 computers and science lab equipment, said Scott Gaudineer, the project’s principal architect. An in-house cable system, which would allow teachers a choice of various educational programming simply by changing the television channel, will also be installed.

“We’re trying to anticipate what they will need for the next 50 years,” Gaudineer said. “The hardware may come later, but the building will be wired for it.”

Ideas for the new school were compiled from a committee of nine school officials who met three times to discuss the plans.

Officials anticipate the need for a new elementary school in central Thousand Oaks--possibly as soon as September, 1992--to educate 600 kindergarten through sixth-grade students who are expected to move into the Lang Ranch housing tract.

Construction of the 2,257-unit tract has started, but a completion date will depend on supply and demand, according to officials of the Lang Ranch Co., which is donating a nine-acre site for the new campus.

Developers’ fees will pay for the school, officials said.