MOORPARK : School Committee’s Suggestions Criticized

A committee that spent 14 months studying ways to improve Moorpark’s elementary schools has made its final report to school board members, who said they were thankful for group’s effort, but were unimpressed by its final recommendations.

“Like I said to them last night,” board member Tom Baldwin said last week, “I don’t have any problem adopting what you’re offering here; I just don’t think you’ve gone far enough.”

In its 52-page report, the Committee for Effective Schools suggested that the Moorpark Unified School District increase parental involvement at its elementary schools, reduce class size, improve the district’s public relations efforts and allow parents a limited ability to choose the schools their children attend.

The group had been convened by the board in September, 1992, and asked to study possible reconfiguration of the district’s five elementary schools and the creation of specialized magnet schools. The 29-member committee of parents, teachers and administrators decided not to recommend a change in configuration or a move toward magnet schools.

Baldwin said the recommendations made it obvious that the group was overwhelmingly satisfied with the state of the school district and did not delve deep enough in searching for ways to make it better.

“I think they just felt like, ‘We’ll come up with some motherhood and apple pie suggestions that everybody will be for,’ ” he said.

Board member Clint Harper also said he was disappointed with the limited scope of the group’s recommendations.

Committee Chairman David Pollock defended the group’s report.

“I think Tom is under the impression that the only way to get big results is through dramatic action,” Pollock said. “We think the best and biggest things come from very modest beginnings and, with our recommendations, we’re planting seeds and we believe that years down the road we’ll look at these recommendations as a turning point.”