Re-Creating History : Students Building Replica Hone Carpentry Skills, Learn About Past

Almost three years into planning and building a replica of the first schoolhouse in Newbury Park, the high school carpentry students doing the work have changed their plans slightly after hearing from a 78-year-old former student.

Even though the students are pushing to meet a June completion date, they allowed for an alteration to correct a historical inaccuracy in the re-created Timber School off Ventu Park Road.

Margaret Bartel, a former Timber student, visited the construction site recently and said the replica correctly has two doors in the front. But there should be boys and girls cloakrooms separating the two entrances inside, Bartel said, so that change was made.

Senior Josh Luster, who has worked on the one-room building since it was first conceived three years ago, said he watched as Bartel walked through the building and noted the missing cloakrooms.

“I don’t understand the reason behind two different entrances, but like the lady said, it was improper for girls to take off a piece of clothing in front of guys, even if it was just a coat,” said Josh, 17.

Even though students want to get the building done after months of delays, they don’t mind the added work required by the changes, Josh said.

“We’re going to try and get it as close to the original as we can,” he said. “We want to build it up exactly how it was.”

The experience of building the replica as a permanent museum next to the historic Stagecoach Inn museum in Newbury Park has given the students more than construction experience and credits in shop class, they said.

“Not only are we building it, we’re learning about history,” said Shane Hale, 17, a Newbury Park junior.

Constructed in 1888, the one-room schoolhouse at Newbury and Kelly roads housed first- through eighth-grade students for 30 years before it became the school district headquarters in the late 1920s, said Miriam Sprankling, curator of history at Stagecoach Inn. The school was torn down half a century ago.

Museum officials and organizers of the building campaign hope to dedicate the building this summer. To get the job done, students still need help from contractors willing to show them how to install a floor, drywall and insulation, teacher Randy Porter said.

“We also need a little more money, because I think all the kids who worked on this deserve to have a bronze plaque with their names on it,” he said.

About 12 to 15 students each year have worked on the building, spending a couple of hours every school day sawing, nailing and sanding. Heavy rains slowed construction in the spring of 1993; there is no work during summer vacation.

For materials, local Rotary clubs, the Conejo Valley Historical Society, Thousand Oaks officials, and the Conejo Recreation and Park District raised more than $29,000.

“This is certainly a part of our heritage in the Conejo Valley, and we are just trying to portray that, to show what it was like to go to school in the 1880s,” Sprankling said.

Once the museum adds the furnishings it has gathered--including wrought-iron desks, slate boards and a potbellied stove--the schoolhouse will come alive as an educational tool for children, said Dan Overton, a local tax professional and chairman of the committee organizing the school project.

“We already have bookings for student tours,” he said.

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The fact that people will appreciate the students’ work for years to come adds a special dimension to the class, ninth-grader Jeremy Hanlon said.

“It’s a lot easier to work on it knowing it’s actually going to be used for something good,” said Jeremy, 14.

Josh said he hopes to show the museum to his own children someday.

“It’ll be neat to take my kids here and show them something their dad did when he was in high school,” he said.