Voters in Oxnard to Decide on New School : Education: Trustees approve placing a bond measure on the April 14 ballot. The $45-million issue would finance a 2,250-student campus.

A $45-million bond issue for a new high school in northeastern Oxnard will be placed on the April 14 ballot, Oxnard Union High School District officials decided Monday.

The Board of Trustees voted 4 to 0, with Bedford Pinkard absent, to ask voters to foot the bill for a 2,250-student school, which has been on the drawing board for several years.

The city’s six high schools were designed for 1,700 fewer students than are enrolled this year, district officials said.

More than 50 portable classrooms are being used at Channel Islands, Oxnard and Hueneme high schools to handle the overflow of students, but cafeterias, libraries and gymnasiums at those schools are seriously overtaxed, officials said.

Enrollment is expected to increase by more than 2,100 students by the 1994-95 school year, when the new school would open, Supt. Ian Kirkpatrick said.

“Theoretically, the day we open, (the school) will be full,” Trustee Nancy Koch said.

If the bond measure fails, officials said students might have to be bused to less crowded schools, more portable classrooms would have to be brought in, and education would suffer.

District officials had expected to build the school with state funds. The district bought a 50-acre site east of Oxnard Boulevard and south of Gonzalez Road, hired architects and planned to open the school for the 1993-94 academic year. But then the state Department of Education changed its funding rules, officials said.

Now, they said, the district’s chances of obtaining state money for the project are virtually nil.

“We have to take care of ourselves and go to the community . . . because the state won’t take care of us,” Koch said.

Trustee Janet Lindgren said the measure would require strong campaigning to get support from the community during tough economic times.

“We would support your effort,” said Richard Butolph, president of the 900-member Oxnard Federation of Teachers and Classified Paraprofessionals.

Lindgren replied that some voters might believe that teachers have a vested interest in the proposal and asked if other parts of the community could be tapped.

The board voted unanimously to hire a consultant to help educate voters on the need for the new school. The school would cost each homeowner about $8 a year for every $100,000 of assessed valuation.

Passage of the bond requires a two-thirds majority vote.

In Camarillo’s Pleasant Valley School District, two measures for a new elementary school and renovations to 13 aging schools have failed this year.

Voters rejected a $75-million bond measure for the schools last June and turned down a $55-million bond in November. Pleasant Valley officials decided this month to postpone any further ballot measures, possibly until 1993.

But Robert A. Brown, business manager of the Oxnard district, said consultants have recommended going for the April 14 special election, although property and income taxes are due the same week.

Brown said the consultant projected a 30% better chance for the district to obtain passage of the measure in April than in June, when voters will be asked to consider a number of state bonds.

A recent survey of Oxnard voters showed that 68% of those questioned would vote for the bond issue, Brown said.

Property for the school was bought with $9 million in capital certificates that did not require voters’ approval. The debt on the school site and up to $100,000 in election costs would be paid out of the $45-million bond, he said.

Construction costs have risen by $20 million since the trustees initially discussed building the school, which would include 85 classrooms in seven buildings.

The new school would be the first in Oxnard to be built since Rio Mesa High School opened in 1965, officials said.