Parents Call Plan to Shift Boundaries Disruptive, Biased

About 200 concerned parents, many holding picket signs opposing proposed changes in Ventura school boundaries, testified at a public hearing Wednesday that the plan would throw rival gangs into one school, dismantle good teaching staffs and destroy longstanding PTA programs.

The parents, many from eastern Ventura schools including Saticoy, Juanamaria and Junipero Serra elementary schools, presented their alternatives to the controversial plan that would force 3,440 pupils to switch schools.

“Our excellent staff and principal team will be ripped apart,” Saticoy School parent Lynda Hannah told school district administrators.

Hannah said PTA elections and planning for the next school year have been put on hold at Saticoy because parents are spending all their time trying to defeat the proposed boundary change.

The plan, unveiled in January, proposes to simplify Ventura’s public school boundaries into four major geographical areas. The boundaries are now a patchwork, with pockets of students being bused beyond the schools closest to their homes.

According to district administrators, who outlined the proposal Wednesday to parents at Cabrillo Middle School, the plan would decrease the number of students who are bused, and save elementary and middle school students a total of 420 miles per day on buses. The district’s $1.7-million transportation budget would be cut by $180,000 a year.

But officials have acknowledged that the mileage savings depends on construction of a middle school to replace Cabrillo. If Cabrillo is not replaced, the savings would only be $30,000, officials said. The district is studying a possible bond measure to raise money for the school.

But parents argued that the district has not considered other ways that the plan would affect schools.

Parent Sharon Pelletier said it would place two rival gangs, the Satis and the Campos, at Saticoy.

“One or the other gang will be off of their turf . . . then we can expect a war,” Pelletier said. “The gangs now only have rivalries on the streets. Why bring the gang problem into our schools?”

But Ventura Police Sgt. Carl Handy discounted that concern, saying there has not been any fighting among the east Ventura gangs this year.

The Saticoy PTA would substitute many of its middle-class parents for minority parents who, parent Julie Boys said, are “less capable of giving financial support and/or participating in the projects of the PTA.”

Teacher Pat Chaney said the plan would hurt Saticoy’s rich ethnic mix and special program for mainstreaming handicapped children from the nearby county-run Douglas Penfield School.

Saticoy parents and teachers also said the program would promote segregation because a bilingual program that would be moved from Juanamaria to Saticoy would, according to district estimates, increase Latinos at Saticoy from 32.9% to 53.7%.

They also argued that moving a bilingual program to Saticoy would force the transfer of many teachers because only one of the 25 teachers there is bilingual.

“It is an incredibly sad thought that in the hopes of saving money, a faculty such as this will be sacrificed,” Chaney said.

As an alternative, Saticoy PTA co-president Peggy Buehler proposed that students not be moved and that the bilingual program remain at Juanamaria. A separate bilingual program could be started at Saticoy if necessary, she said.

She suggested that district officials wait until there is funding for new schools before moving students, to save them from being moved twice.