CAMARILLO : Task Force to Study School District Plan

The Pleasant Valley School District board of trustees decided this week to appoint a task force to consider setting up a unified school district in Camarillo.

However, school district staff members were gloomy about the prospects for unification, and the school board president questioned whether it is a desirable goal.

Pleasant Valley School District consists of Camarillo’s 13 elementary schools. About two-thirds of the district’s graduates attend Camarillo High School, school board President Leonard Diamond said. The rest go to Rio Mesa High School. Both high schools are part of the Oxnard Union High School District.

The school board set up the task force at the request of board member Jan McDonald, who said residents frequently ask her about unification.

The move would not merge the Pleasant Valley and Oxnard high school districts, but would probably involve annexing Camarillo High School to the Pleasant Valley district, Diamond said.

State education officials would have to approve any unification request.

One advantage of unification would be that Pleasant Valley elementary teachers, who staged a bitter strike last year over pay, would get higher salaries, Diamond said. State law would require that their salaries be brought up to the level earned by teachers in the Oxnard high school district.

However, this advantage could prove to be a roadblock to unification, Pleasant Valley Supt. Shirley F. Carpenter said.

New state laws discourage school districts from unifying if it will mean higher costs to the state, as for salaries.

Diamond approved setting up the task force, but he later said he thinks unification is a bad idea.

“I’m absolutely opposed to it,” Diamond said. “What it’s going to do is make our district more cumbersome and give us more headaches.”

If Pleasant Valley did try to unify with Camarillo High School, it could expect opposition from the Oxnard high school district, Diamond said.

“What this gets down to is capturing one of their pieces of property,” Diamond said.