SAN JUAN CAPISTRANO : School Boundary Proposals Outlined

A near-capacity crowd packed a school auditorium Monday night as trustees in the Capistrano Unified School District held a hearing on major changes in high school attendance boundary lines.

They heard praise and criticism for the school district’s proposals, which have yet to receive the approval of board members.

“We will certainly take everything into consideration,” Board President Marlene Draper told the crowd after the two-hour hearing.

The trustees expect to make a final decision Monday on the high-school boundary proposals. Major attendance boundary changes are required because of the planned opening next fall of Aliso Niguel High School in Aliso Viejo--the district’s fourth high school.

Middle school boundaries will also be affected, although to a lesser extent.

A group of parents from north Mission Viejo, Rancho Santa Margarita, Coto de Caza and Dove Canyon mostly applauded a proposal by Supt. James A. Fleming giving their children the choice of remaining at Capistrano Valley High School. But another group of San Juan Capistrano parents mostly opposed a proposal to move their children from San Clemente to Dana Hills High School.

Some of the most impassioned pleas came from the students themselves.

“My friends and I are worried about this new boundary change,” said Matt Hall, a Marco Forster Middle School student who would be affected by the proposal to transfer incoming high school students who live near Ortega Highway and San Juan Creek Road to Dana Hills High School.

While Hall could attend San Clemente High School because his older siblings go there already, most of his friends would be heading to Dana Hills High School. If he chose to go with his friends “it would split up our family,” he said.

“Please take into consideration, it is our lives you will be affecting,” he told trustees.

Niguel Hills Middle School eighth-grader Bryan Frank said he was disappointed to learn that he lives in a small pocket of Laguna Niguel that will remain in the Dana Hills High School attendance area. Frank would rather go to the new school, which will include a cutting-edge video information network, the first such system in the state.

Among the proposals that caused the most debate during the hearing:

* Any future high school students living near Ortega Highway and San Juan Creek Road in San Juan Capistrano would attend Dana Hills High School, rather than San Clemente High School. The change would mean that students at Marco Forster Middle School in San Juan Capistrano would feed into two different high schools, instead of three. All current high school students affected by this boundary change could opt to stay at San Clemente High School until they graduate.

* Students in the district’s northern section of Mission Viejo would have the option of attending the new high school since their parents are paying special taxes to build it. The students, however, could choose to remain at Capistrano Valley High School.

* Marina Hills Drive would mark the boundary line between the new high school and Dana Hills High School. All incoming ninth- and 10th-graders living in Aliso Viejo and northern and central Laguna Niguel would attend the new school, which would open with 1,132 students in grades nine through 11, then expand to full attendance the following year.