VENTURA : Expansion Urged for School’s Open-Classroom Division

The open-classroom division of Blanche Reynolds Elementary School won’t be seceding from the Ventura Unified School District.

Hoping to take advantage of a new law, parents and faculty had considered petitioning the district for a charter to establish an independent public school.

Meeting at the elementary school on Monday night, about 90 parents voted to drop the plan and try instead to expand without breaking away.

With three classes serving 96 students in kindergarten through fifth grade--and with 167 children on a waiting list through 1998--parents see a need for more classrooms and a middle school. Blanche Reynolds is the only school in the district with the alternative open-classroom program.

District administrator Arlene Miro told the parents that the district could probably add one classroom, but “the middle school will be harder.”

According to faculty and parents, the open-classroom concept works better than traditional teaching methods.

“All our graduates go on to graduate high school,” Jan Magson said of the open-classroom method. She has two children in the program, which has been at the elementary school for six years.

Stressing creative thinking and nonviolent resolution to conflicts, the school requires parents to help out in the classroom--its motto is “we admit the parent, not just the student.”

Parents usually volunteer four hours a week. Tuesday afternoon on the ball field, Gary Matsuk, the father of a second-grader, gave students hands-on experience with a laser device he uses on the job to measure golf courses.

“With the open classroom, kids get away from the standard industrial education,” Matsuk said. “We’re thrilled with the concept.”