HUNTINGTON BEACH : District to Consider Its Reconfiguration

Ocean View School District Supt. Monte McMurray this week will formally recommend that the school board approve a district reconfiguration plan that would close two schools and create four middle schools within two years.

During a study session last week, trustees said they favor the concept but will not formally back the plan before hearing comments from parents during six neighborhood meetings, beginning today, at each of the district’s kindergarten-through-eighth-grade schools.

The 7 p.m. meetings are scheduled as follows: today at Vista View School, Wednesday at Mesa View, Thursday at Marine View, March 11 at Harbour View, March 12 at Spring View and March 13 at Crest View.

Meanwhile, the board indefinitely postponed a public hearing that had been scheduled for Tuesday to consider a sweeping racial-integration proposal. The hearing was canceled because the federal Office of Civil Rights has not yet reviewed the district’s desegregation plan.

The integration and reconfiguration efforts, a year in the works, propose the most far-reaching upheaval of the district’s structure in more than a decade.

The desegregation plan aims to correct the ethnic imbalances of student populations at seven schools. Among other changes, it would close Crest View School and revamp Oak View School into a facility mainly devoted to helping students with limited-English capabilities learn their new language.

District officials, as well as many parents and teachers who have helped devise the plan, say the plan would organize the district to make Ocean View’s educational programs more effective and serve more students, while compensating for declining enrollment. A plan the board rejected last June, which called for three school closures, was designed chiefly as a budget-cutting measure.

The new plan would abolish the district’s current system, which combines 11 kindergarten-through-sixth-grade schools and six kindergarten-through-eighth-grade sites. Instead, 11 schools would be changed to kindergarten-through-fifth-grade facilities, two would be closed, and four others changed to sixth-through-eighth-grade middle schools.

Officials have not yet determined which of the schools would be closed or changed to middle schools. If Crest View is closed as part of the desegregation plan, only one other school would be closed for reconfiguration. Crest View, Haven View and Sun View are the schools most often considered for closure during recent staff, board and community discussions on the issue.

In all, the proposal would probably force about 1,250 of Ocean View’s 8,500 students to transfer to different schools, officials estimate.

Staffing, transportation and other changes required under the plan would cost the district more than $1 million, officials said. An estimated $555,000 of those costs, to buy eight new buses, would be paid from a special capital reserve fund, which is set up for such purchases. The remaining $470,000 in costs would be offset by the money the district would save by closing two schools, McMurray said.

The plan, however, would do nothing toward bridging the district’s budget shortfall, which officials estimate to be about $1.4 million. That would have to be covered by cuts, officials said.

After the neighborhood meetings, the board is scheduled March 19 to hold its first public hearing on the reconfiguration issue. It is expected to hold a final hearing April 9, after which it will decide whether to approve a new plan.