District Seeks to Improve Racial Mix of 23 Schools : Education: Ventura Unified unveils a plan to make special programs more widely available. Some parents question the need for changes.

Ventura Unified School District officials Tuesday night detailed a sweeping plan to racially balance enrollment in Ventura schools, and received their first public response to the new proposal.

After officials explained how their plan would change the enrollment boundaries of the district’s 23 schools, one parent warned them that they must be well prepared to explain the changes when they face the public.

The board will vote on whether to set hearings on the plan at its Jan. 22 meeting. A final vote would be in May if the proposal goes forward.

“A lot of what I see makes sense, and then I see kids being moved to schools that aren’t the closest to them,” said Kerry Roscoe, a parent of children who attend Buena High and Balboa Middle schools. “If that’s the way it has to be, then you’d better have some solid data to explain why.

“You can’t ask people to switch their loyalties at the drop of a hat,” she added.

Only about 15 parents attended the school board meeting Tuesday. But comments by board members indicated that they expect the proposal to create controversy.

The plan could change where about 7,500 students--half of those in the district--attend middle and high school, officials said.

Assistant Supt. Richard Welcher said in an interview that the proposed boundaries are intended to balance the numbers of minority students within four major geographical areas and to make special programs available to all the district’s 15,000 students.

“This proposal distributes those programs fairly and equally,” Welcher said.

Officials also hope that the program will streamline the district’s busing programs, cut transportation costs and allow friends to attend the same schools together from kindergarten through 12th grade.

“You’ve got youngsters on the east side coming way to the west side, and we’re trying to eliminate that,” Welcher said. Racial balance in enrollments is a primary objective, he said.

Overall, students in Ventura schools are about 70% white, 23% Latino and 7% other minorities.

The most racially imbalanced of the district’s 17 elementary schools are Will Rogers, Sheridan Way, Juanamaria and E. P. Foster, according to district records. Most students at all four schools are minority.

DeAnza Middle School has the largest minority enrollment of the district’s four middle schools, about 40%.

Buena and Ventura high schools have white enrollments above the district average. Buena students are 74% white, while Ventura’s are 73% white.

Under the plan, district officials said many children who now attend schools outside their neighborhoods would be in schools closer to home.

For example, some students in the Saticoy area who now attend Ventura High School would be able to attend Buena High.

But other students, especially in the area near Victoria Avenue and Foothill Road, would be required to go to schools farther from their residences.

The plan, for instance, would assign elementary students from Ventura’s affluent Clearpoint and Hidden Valley neighborhoods, who now attend Poinsettia Elementary School, to Loma Vista Elementary, which is farther away. Also, high school students in the Skyline, Clearpoint, Ondulando, and Hidden Valley neighborhoods north of Foothill Road would also be sent to Ventura High instead of nearby Buena High.

Sheryl Baldwin, president of Poinsettia Elementary School’s parent group, said the plan is going to cause “an awful lot of concern.”

“People are, I think, understandably upset--if the plan goes through as proposed,” Baldwin said. “Most of the people who have purchased homes in this area have done so because they want to be near Poinsettia.”

Baldwin said Poinsettia has “a very active group of parents and they’ve been able to put an awful lot of energy and time and money into that school.”

Yet, some parents said in interviews that they are in favor of the plan because it will bring uniformity to the district.

“It’s a very emotional issue, but it makes sense,” said Rosemary Armstrong, president of the Buena High School PTA. “The main problem with the schools in Ventura is there’s so much busing going on that’s unnecessary.”

Welcher’s assistant, Jean Rudolph, said Cabrillo Middle School and the district’s elementary schools would be much more affected than the high schools.

“It’s not going to throw any school very far off from what they are right now,” Rudolph said, referring to their percentage of minority students enrolled.

The plan is also designed to accommodate students with special needs. A program for the hearing impaired, for example, would be moved from Loma Vista Elementary to Elmhurst Elementary, and a special bilingual program would move from Juanamaria Elementary to Saticoy.

Officials said the plan would allow expansion of the district’s year-round program into all parts of the district.

In an interview, Supt. Cesare Caldarelli said he came up with the boundary change proposal, called clustering, to help simplify district boundaries and to make the school’s busing programs more efficient and cost-effective.

The plan will also accommodate the district’s four-year voluntary desegregation plan and growth in eastern Ventura. It would not take effect until the 1992-93 school year at earliest, officials said.