CAMARILLO : Schools May Face Boundary Changes

Significant changes such as boundary adjustments will have to be made before Camarillo intermediate schools can become middle schools, school officials said.

“I don’t see how we can have middle schools without boundary changes and major boundary changes,” said Shirley Carpenter, superintendent of the Pleasant Valley Elementary School District, at the board’s special meeting Thursday.

The board met to discuss how to handle school overcrowding and o implement the middle school plan.

“We can’t just look at the middle school, it has to be the big picture,” Trustee Jan McDonald said.

McDonald, who heads the Facilities Committee, said teachers and principals report that the ideal number of students attending a middle school ranges from 750 to 1,000.

The last time the board considered middle schools was in 1987, when trustees voted against the plan because it would require boundary changes, Trustee Leonard Diamond said. He said boundary adjustments had recently been made, and trustees decided it was too soon to make further changes.

Making boundary changes “would be very positive for our district, and personally I think it’s time,” he said.

Trustee Leonard Caligiuri cautioned that the board should consider options that could occur if voters passed a bond issue, even though they rejected two within the past year. Voters turned down bond issues that would have raised $75 million and $55 million, respectively, for renovating the district’s 13 schools and building a new elementary school.

“At some point, we need to build more facilities, and that doesn’t go away does it?” Caligiuri said. “That need doesn’t go away.”