PLEASANT VALLEY : Schools to Vote on Unification Study

The Pleasant Valley Elementary School District will vote Thursday whether to spend up to $8,000 to study unifying elementary school districts with the high school district in the Oxnard-Camarillo area.

If the board approves hiring a consultant to do the study, it will be the first time in Pleasant Valley’s history that such a study has been done, Associate Supt. Howard Hamilton said.

Now, seven elementary school districts in the area feed into the Oxnard Union High School District, which has six high schools. Those districts are Pleasant Valley, Rio, Mesa Union, Ocean View, Oxnard, Hueneme and Somis Union.

Together, they include 42 elementary schools, 10 intermediate schools, one alternative school and one school for kindergarten through eighth-grade students.

District administrators are asking the board to consider creating up to four school districts in the area to include kindergartners through 12th-graders, Supt. Shirley Carpenter said.

The cost of the unification feasibility study increases according to the number of elementary school districts it covers.

Unification of the districts would result in the coordination of curricula and vacation schedules among the schools, Hamilton said. Also, he said, some money could be saved by cutting the number of districts and, thus, the number of administrators.

Carpenter said the Pleasant Valley district hopes that other districts also will want to consider the unification proposal and help share the study cost. The $8,000 ceiling represents what she believes Pleasant Valley’s share will be.