Board Weighs Killing Middle School Plan : Oxnard: District officials cite the need for a new, less costly elementary campus.

The board of the Oxnard Elementary School District is considering dropping its plans to switch to a middle school system because of concerns that it may be too costly.

The board voted last summer to convert Fremont and Haydock intermediate schools, now serving grades seven and eight, to middle schools, which would add sixth-grade classes at the two campuses.

The change was to have taken place when the new Frank School, which has yet to be designated as either an intermediate or middle school, opens in 1994. The school is now under construction.

A special committee made up of parents, teachers and administrators who studied the middle school concept for more than a year recommended in June that the 12,000-student district move ahead with plans for reconfiguration.

But with enrollment up by more than 400 students this year and the growth rate expected to continue rising at a rapid pace, it now appears that the reconfiguration plan will be scrapped, officials said. The reason is that such a program would require a fourth middle school to be built within the next five years, instead of a new elementary school as now planned.

School officials said there is a more pressing need for another elementary school, which they said would require about a third of the cost needed to build a new middle school.

“It looks at this point that it is probably not practical” to switch to a middle school system, Jack Fowler, a school board member, said. “It simply will cost too much to convert.”

Board member James Suter, who strongly supports the middle school concept, agreed.

“It would be a wonderful setup,” he said. “But there is no money.”

The board is expected to make a decision on the middle school plan at its 7:30 p.m. meeting on Wednesday at the district office, 1051 South A St. The board will also decide whether to designate Frank School as a middle school.

No matter what the board decides, it will not increase construction costs for the $21-million Frank School campus, which broke ground in November, said Sandra Herrera, the district’s business manager. If the school, designed to accommodate between 1,200 and 1,500 students, is designated as a middle school the only additional costs would be for furniture and equipment, she said.

Meanwhile, parents who served on the middle school committee that studied the reconfiguration issue for more than a year before making its recommendation said they are disappointed that the plan may not be implemented. But they said the district can still incorporate middle school teaching methods at the intermediate schools without moving students around or incurring additional costs.

“You can still use the middle school philosophy with seventh- and eighth-graders,” said Sheryle Milmont, a committee member whose 12-year-old son will attend Fremont next fall. “If we stay with the philosophy, at least my time on the committee will not have been wasted.”

For several years there has been a nationwide trend toward the middle school system. Educators say the system groups students to more closely match their physical, emotional and intellectual development.

There are also academic advantages. In middle schools, subjects such as math and science are taught by a small group of teachers who organize their classes to show students how the different subjects interrelate.

District officials said some middle school teaching methods are already being used at Fremont and Haydock.