2 Teachers Head Drive Against School Site : Oxnard High: The couple say having the campus in their neighborhood will increase crime and decrease property values.

Christopher and Patty Kingsley may be teachers, but that doesn’t mean they want a high school built around the corner from their Oxnard residence.

The Kingsleys, residents of Oxnard’s Summerfield development, are spearheading neighborhood opposition to a proposal to relocate Oxnard High School to Gonzales and Patterson roads, in an unincorporated county area just outside Oxnard city limits.

The old school, under the flight path near Oxnard Airport, has been declared a safety hazard by state officials because of its proximity to the airport.

Last spring, plans for a new Oxnard High School were moved to the top of a state list to receive funding from an $800-million bond passed in June. School officials expect to receive about $20 million toward the new school.

But the Kingsleys, both teachers in Ventura, say having a high school in the neighborhood is no longer the desirable asset it once was.

“A high school is not a safe place anymore,” said Christopher Kingsley, 39.

In a flyer the couple distributed to more than 800 houses in Oxnard’s Summerfield, River Ridge and Strawberry Fields neighborhoods, Kingsley said high schools attract gangs, drugs, crime, graffiti and traffic, and cause property values to plunge. New houses in the area, about two miles north of the airport, have sold in the $200,000 to $500,000 range.

“There isn’t anything good about living near a high school these days,” said the flyer, which urged residents to contact school officials and City Council members.

Reaction from the neighborhood was swift.

Summerfield homeowner Isabel Ward, 53, began gathering signatures of residents opposed to the school. In one weekend, Ward gathered 86 signatures, and she plans to seek more, she said.

“It scares me,” Ward said of the plans for the school. “You get vandalism and burglary, and kids coming home and getting on your property. They have no respect for anything.”

River Ridge resident Cathy Smathers, 64, said that, when she purchased her house, she believed the proposed school site would remain agricultural land. Smathers, co-editor of River Ridge’s community newsletter, said she plans to reprint the flyer in the newsletter and distribute it to River Ridge’s 268 homeowners.

But Bedford Pinkard, a River Ridge resident who is also an Oxnard Union High School District board member, said he was offended by the flyer.

“My first concern is, when did we begin to say that students are threats to the community? That bothers me,” Pinkard said. “I see attacks on school kids as attacks on other segments of the community. I’m black. They’re saying the same things against high school students that they said against me 20 years ago, when I wanted to move to Oxnard. . . . They’re finding another nigger to beat on.”

Pinkard said the school would benefit the community, because its ethnic makeup reflects that of the city itself.

According to a 1989-90 report issued by the school, Oxnard High’s student body was 48.8% Latino, 37% white, 7.5% black, 2.7% Asian-American, 2.9% Filipino, 0.8% American Indian and 0.3% Pacific Islander.

“That is the problem I see them having . . . with these people going through the neighborhood,” Pinkard said. He said he had not spoken with the couple.

But the Kingsleys, who moved to Oxnard from Ventura about a year ago, said they are concerned about potential crime, not race.

Patty Kingsley, 37, said people who have called in response to the flyer “haven’t mentioned a racial issue. What they have mentioned to me is gang activity, and if you know anything about gang activity in Ventura County, you know all kinds of people are involved.”

Christopher Kingsley said the students are not the problem. “I like teen-agers,” said the middle school teacher. “I choose to work with them. . . . Eighty to 90% of the kids at that high school are going to be fine, outstanding teen-agers. I’m worried about the other elements that are going to be attracted to that campus.”

The Kingsleys argue that the proposed site is still too close to the airport, that the school should be more centrally located and that traffic from transporting 2,000 to 3,000 students and staff will clog neighborhood streets, particularly where both Gonzales Road and Victoria Avenue narrow to two lanes.

But Marlin Buirge, president of the Oxnard Board of Realtors, said he did not think a new high school would decrease property values.

“In any given situation, you’re going to have as many people saying, ‘I don’t want to live near a high school,’ as saying, ‘I want to live near one,’ ” Buirge said. “Let’s face it, on Sunday afternoon, a high school is a very good neighbor. It’s a park space where you can go play ball or have a picnic.”

David Keith, a crime analysis unit manager with the Oxnard Police Department, said the neighborhood around the proposed site is a low-crime area, and that any development in the area could cause crime rates to rise. Keith said gang problems are no worse at Oxnard High than at the city’s other high schools.

“Any time you put 3,000 people into an area, you’re going to have an increase in crime,” Keith said.

Some residents who live near the present Oxnard High, on 5th and K streets, said there are both drawbacks and attractions to living near a high school.

Virginia Philbrook, 83, has lived across the street from Oxnard High for 52 years. Her late husband and three children all graduated from the school, she said.

“It’s bound to get a little complicated when you get a bunch of live-wire kids together, but there hasn’t seemed to be any undue deportment,” Philbrook said. She said she has occasionally had trash on her lawn, and that she has to have her newspaper delivered over her back fence instead of on her front lawn because students sometimes take it.

But Philbrook said the problems are “not enough to complain about. . . . It’s really been handy having it here.”

The district has been planning a new Oxnard High for several years, said board President Steve Stocks. The proposed location was one of two selected by a committee from an original list of about 20 sites, he said.

However, school officials said they have not yet purchased the Patterson and Gonzales site, and are still looking for ways to finance purchase of the land. State funding provides money only for construction.

Meanwhile, preliminary architectural drawings of the school have been approved by the board and submitted to state officials, said district business manager Robert Brown.

In response to residents’ concerns, the district plans to hold a special hearing this month to discuss the school, but a date has not been set, Brown said.

Where to put new schools is likely to be a continuing issue in the 11,200-student district, where a report projected that the number of students will double over the next 15 years. In addition to a new Oxnard High, the district is planning a seventh high school south of Gonzales Road near Rose Avenue.

The Kingsleys and other residents said they plan to attend a Jan. 9 school board meeting, when the board is scheduled to discuss an environmental impact report on Oxnard High. They said many residents who responded to the flyer were unaware of plans for the school and that they will ask the board to poll residents to find out whether they want it.

Said Christopher Kingsley: “People should know and be able to react to it, and give their input to the school board.”