VENTURA : Students Offer Ideas to Upgrade Campus

For a group of 63 Ventura High School students, the assignment was intriguing: Design environmentally sensitive ways to spruce up the campus.

Students unveiled their ideas for Ventura officials at City Hall Wednesday, and some went beyond practical touches like trees and flowers.

One student envisioned the campus under a tent that lets in sunlight. Another imagined an amphitheater in the hills behind the school, while another student proposed a salt-water fishing pond for the grounds.

Several students involved in the class project drew plans for a bridge over Poli Street, which divides the campus. Others suggested closing the street to traffic during school hours.

Student Whitney Robson designed a welcome arch for the school, bearing the words “Cougar Country” and below it were paw prints painted on the walkway leading onto the campus.

“They had some good ideas--some were wild, some were practical, but they all showed great imagination,” said Bernard Tamborello, a Ventura land planner who directed the project.

Tamborello is no stranger to ideas. In July he proposed bringing the Queen Mary to Ventura Harbor, setting it up next to a vacant lot and using it as a Cal State University campus.

He took his idea for the project to the school and the students spent the last two months on it, working one hour a week. He has done similar projects with students at two other schools in Ventura and one in Carpinteria.

The goal of the project is to carry out some of the students’ ideas, and one already in progress is a plaza on campus that is being constructed with help from Ventura landscape architect William Morgan.

“Young people inspire you,” Tamborello said. “This makes you feel good.”