Year-Round School Plan Promises to Be Hard Sell : Education: Oxnard high school district trustees give conditional approval to the proposal, but it receives a low grade from many students.

Oxnard High School students on Thursday greeted the prospect of a year-round schedule with the kind of enthusiasm usually reserved for a pop quiz.

“Ooow, I don’t want year-round schools,” freshman Vanessa Rauschenberger said. “It’s going to ruin sports. Nobody’s going to want to come to games or practice when they’re on vacation.”

The students are a step closer to a year-round schedule because the board of the Oxnard Union High School District voted 3 to 2 late Wednesday to conditionally approve the controversial schedule, which would divide the school year into nine-week quarters separated by three-week intersessions, eliminating the traditional three-month summer vacation.

Supt. Bill Studt had recommended conditional approval to allow for the formation of a committee of parents, students and faculty to review the issue and to survey parents of the school’s 2,134 students. The committee has to report its findings by Oct. 15.

If the new schedule receives final approval from the board, it would begin at the start of the 1994-95 school year as part of a two-year pilot program.

The district has held three public meetings on the year-round proposal, drawing dozens of irate parents who said the change would disrupt their personal schedules, prevent their children from getting summer jobs, and hurt athletic programs.

In February, Oxnard High teachers and staff voted 91 to 31 in favor of year-round school, but 500 students signed a petition against it. Students haven’t changed their minds.

Kelly Herzstein, a 15-year-old freshman, was baffled by the board’s decision. “I don’t know why they would do it,” she said. “It’s the same amount of days and hours, so why change things for the heck of it?”

Students said Thursday that the four intersessions are only going to create problems. “Everybody knows that the last week of school and the first week back you don’t do anything,” said Rauschenberger, 15. “And teachers are always complaining that things get lost during vacation.”

Board members agree that the year-round schedule is a hard sell. “The survey has to include the rationale why the faculty thinks this is a good idea,” said Nancy Koch, who voted for conditional approval. “But I don’t know how you can educate people” about the program.

Board member Steve Stocks has reservations about the year-round schedule and voted against giving conditional approval because “we have not sold parents on the program and we need to.”

According to proponents of year-round schools, students retain information better if they take short breaks instead of a long vacation, leading to improved grades.

But Larry Raffaelli, longtime water polo and swimming coach at the high school, is skeptical.

“Academically, nothing has been proven,” said Raffaelli, whose son is a 10th-grader at the school. “I personally don’t think the (year-round) schedule is good for academics or for kids in sports or extracurricular activities. I’m concerned about student and teacher burnout.”

Raffaelli also said that if teachers were polled again on their feelings about the year-round schedule, the result “would be different today” than it was in February.

The parent survey is critical, Studt said. “If we get good support, we’ll recommend implementing” the year-round schedule, he said.

But Raffaelli, who has asked to be on the committee, doesn’t think the public will go for the new schedule.

“In the past,” he said, “the community has been pretty much against it.”