Groups Will Urge Board to Rescind Prop. 174 Support : Education: Faculty and student organizations are angered by college panel’s vote to back the school voucher initiative.

Several faculty and student organizations at Ventura County’s three community colleges, angered by the district board’s decision last month to support the school voucher initiative, will ask board members to rescind their vote at tonight’s board meeting.

If the board does not change its position on Proposition 174, some student and faculty representatives said they may call for a no-confidence vote.

But the three board members who favored the resolution--Karen Boone, Gregory P. Cole, and Timothy Hirschberg--said they have no plans to change their votes.

“My position has not changed at all, and probably has been even reinforced,” Cole said. “I’ve gotten such a number of calls from my constituents on this issue, and there is such a thirst for change in the school system. People feel that a radical overhaul is needed right now.”

Boone agreed. “I have no plan to rescind my vote,” she said. Faculty members and students, she said, “aren’t going to change the facts.”

Proposition 174 would enable each student from kindergarten through the 12th grade to receive an educational voucher redeemable at the public, private or parochial school of the family’s choice. The vouchers, worth $2,600 each, would come out of the state’s general education fund that pays for elementary, secondary and community college education.

In approving their resolution, the board said Proposition 174 would have no financial impact on the college district. But many officials at other community colleges say the measure could deprive the districts of millions of dollars.

The board of the Ventura County Community College District is believed to be the only such body in the state to endorse the November ballot measure.

The board’s non-voting student trustee, Sean Mumper, put the item on today’s agenda calling for the board to rescind its endorsement.

Mumper said the proposal to rescind is formally supported by the Moorpark College Student Council and informally supported by members of the Oxnard College Student Council. The student council at Ventura College will not take a position on the board’s vote, although it has passed its own resolution opposing the voucher initiative, a council member said.

Representatives of the faculty senates at all three colleges also will call on the board to rescind the endorsement. At Moorpark College, more than 200 of the school’s 390 faculty members voted on the matter, with 80% calling on the trustees to “reverse their public stance on Proposition 174 in an attempt to regain the good faith of this educational community,” said Steven Pollock, psychology professor and senate president.

The Ventura College faculty senate voted unanimously this week for a resolution stating the board’s vote “fails to meet the high standards of public responsibility necessary to advance the best educational interests of this community,” said Bill Robinson, mathematics professor and senate president at Ventura College.

The college district’s teachers union also is expected to speak out tonight against the board’s endorsement.

If the board sticks to its position, faculty members may consider a vote of no confidence, Robinson said. Union and student council representatives said they also might consider such action.

FYI The Ventura County Community College District board will meet at 7:30 tonight at district headquarters, 77 Day Road, Ventura.