Schools May Not Change Poinsettia’s Boundaries : Ventura: Parents persuade officials to consider revising a districtwide realignment proposal.

The parents of students at Poinsettia Elementary School have persuaded Ventura Unified School District officials to consider exempting the school from a sweeping boundary realignment plan, parents and school officials said Wednesday.

The boundary plan, which was unveiled in January, is designed to allow students to go to schools closer to home, officials said. However, it would bus about a third of the school’s 450 students to Loma Vista Elementary School two miles to the west.

In response to objections from Poinsettia parents, school officials said they drafted changes to the plan to leave the students at the school.

A committee of district administrators will present the proposed changes at a May 6 meeting with parents. The Ventura Unified School District Board of Education will consider the change at a study session on May 7.

The board will give final consideration to the realignment plan on May 14.

District officials have said a goal of the plan is to reduce busing overall in the 15,000-student district. Officials estimate that under the original plan 3,440 students would have been transferred.

The most vocal opponents of the boundary changes have been Poinsettia parents, who objected to busing elementary school children away from their neighborhood.

Under the original realignment plan, the students removed from Poinsettia would be replaced by students from Elmhurst Elementary School. Those students would then be replaced by a group of hearing-impaired students from Loma Vista, school officials said.

The change that Poinsettia parents have fought for would cancel those transfers.

However, even if the district agrees to exempt Poinsettia from the realignment plan, older students in the foothill communities of Ondulando, Clearpoint, Hidden Valley and Skyline would still be affected, school officials said.

Under the plan, students living north of Foothill Road would attend Anacapa Middle School and then Ventura High School. Now, those students attend Balboa Middle School and Buena High, which many parents believe is academically superior to Ventura High.

About 165 students from kindergarten to fifth grade and about 100 high school students in the district live north of Foothill Road, officials said.

Cheryl Baldwin, president of the Poinsettia parent organization, said she has sent out a newsletter advising parents about the proposed change. She said a district administrator sent her a rough draft of the change on Tuesday.

Baldwin said many parents have already complained about having to send their children to Ventura High instead of Buena High.

“I’m fairly sure you will still get opposition on the high school,” she said.

However, some parents said they do not oppose busing their children to a middle school and a high school farther from home in exchange for keeping their elementary children in the neighborhood.

“It’s not as big of a concern once the kids are out of middle school,” said Chris Will, who has two children attending Poinsettia.

Although some parents consider Buena High superior to Ventura High, Will said that may change by the time her children reach high school age.

“Who can say that Ventura High School is not going to be a good high school?” she asked.

Will, a former member of the Poinsettia parent organization, said she believes that district officials have agreed to consider exempting Poinsettia from the realignment plan because of strong parent opposition.

“I’m surprised that they backed down,” she said. “I guess they were just afraid of or surprised at the public outcry.”

Jean Rudolph, district administrator, said school officials had always intended to give parents an opportunity to offer changes to the boundary proposal. She said district officials will work with parents to address as many objections to the plan as possible.

FYI

The proposed changes to the realignment plan will be discussed at 7 p.m. May 6 at Anacapa Middle School, 100 S. Mills Road in Ventura. The May 7 and May 14 Board of Education meetings will take place at 7 p.m. at Ventura City Hall, 505 Poli St.