More Busing Ahead for Camarillo Students, Trustees Say : Education: Recent development has left Pleasant Valley classrooms overcrowded. The issue surfaces amid discussion of starting middle schools.

Even if Pleasant Valley school officials decide not to start up middle schools in the Camarillo district, students still will have to be bused in growing numbers next year to alleviate overcrowding that will become critical in 1993.

Pleasant Valley Elementary School District officials told more than 150 parents at their board meeting Thursday that 85 children are already being bused away from their neighborhood elementary schools, which are full because of recent development in the city’s Mission Oaks area.

The number of children is expected to increase next year to 150, including a surge in the number of seventh- and eighth-graders who will have to be bused to the district’s two intermediate schools.

To handle the increase, Associate Supt. Howard Hamilton said the district will have to buy or lease two buses at a cost of $2,000 a month for each bus, plus $35,000 a year to operate each vehicle.

By the start of the next school year, Hamilton said, five schools will have more students than their buildings were designed to hold. Four of those are already over capacity, and they are expected to be even more crowded next year.

The district’s enrollment picture came during a lengthy meeting to discuss options for transforming one, two or three schools into middle schools, a proposal trustees are considering along with plans to ease overcrowding.

The middle schools would group sixth-, seventh- and eighth-graders and teach a curriculum geared toward adolescents. Trustees agree that this curriculum change is long overdue. Today, seventh- and eighth-graders attend Camarillo’s intermediate schools.

Hamilton said the board has directed him to look into the possibility of year-round schools, in which students would be divided into four groups.

Three groups would attend school for 45 days, while the fourth would go on vacation for 15 days.

Trustee Jan McDonald displayed a hand-drawn graph Thursday night to illustrate the enrollment growth, which is particularly dramatic at Las Colinas School.

That school, designed to hold 1,050 students, would have 2,510 students by 2009 if students weren’t bused away, she said.

“Changes will be required, and change is tough for everyone,” McDonald said several times during the meeting.

McDonald presented three options for locating middle schools at one or more of the following: Monte Vista Intermediate School, Los Altos Intermediate School and Las Colinas School.

The options were formulated by a committee made up of parents, teachers, administrators, district staff and McDonald.

The three scenarios, on which the board took no action, drew complaints from some parents, who said the adoption of middle schools is unnecessary and disruptive to students’ lives.

“After all the politicking, who will be the most affected? The kids,” said Diane Kline, president of the Valle Lindo Parent-Teacher Organization.

Meanwhile, trustees argued among themselves as some continued to speculate about what options were possible if voters pass a bond measure to pay for school renovation and construction.

Voters have rejected two measures, for $75 million and $55 million, in the past year.

Trustee Leonard Diamond said trustees should stop talking as if the bond still had a chance of passing.

“It really concerns me that we have to shake up the district so much,” he said. However, he added, “I could live with one of these options if I had to.”

Diamond and McDonald tried to reassure parents that they were all on the same side.

“I refuse to put another Band-Aid on (the district) because I think we’re bleeding to death,” McDonald said. “Please work with us, don’t attack us.”

“We are not your adversaries,” Diamond said. “It’s very important for you to understand that.”

Some parents had ideas of their own.

They suggested that the $1.8 million set aside for the construction of Woodcreek School, which has been delayed indefinitely until voters approve a bond measure for additional money, should be used to create a new elementary school made of portable classrooms at that site.

“We need a new school now,” said Jo Ann Key, a Las Colinas parent, who said she would help raise money to make that proposal a reality.

Hamilton said Friday that he will look more closely at putting up a modular school because the enrollment situation could worsen even more than projected.

“If the economy picks up, we could get twice what we expect,” he said.