In a Class by Itself : New Moorpark School Impresses Parents, Youths on Visit

Hundreds of students and parents roamed the grounds of Moorpark’s newest school Thursday, getting to know the $14-million campus for the first time and preparing for the first day of school on Sept. 8.

Perched on a crest of hills on the southeast side of town, Mesa Verde Middle School boasts a panoramic view of Moorpark.

“This is tremendous--they have a view of the whole valley,” said parent David Grove, who attended a school orientation with his 11-year-old daughter Stacey.

“An environment like this is conducive to learning,” he said. “Students can come here and instantaneously have pride in their school. They can’t help but feel school spirit.”

Grove’s daughter and her friend Jennifer Hobdy, 11, agreed.

Walking around the buildings and peeking in classrooms on a tour for the incoming sixth-, seventh- and eighth-grade students, Jennifer compared the new school, with its covered walkways, to a college campus.

“It’s really nice,” Jennifer said. “Everything is so clean and neat, it makes me think of a church.”

Students and parents also listened Thursday to a half-hour presentation by administrators on school rules, including the dress code. Prohibited items include baseball caps and sportswear imprinted with the logos of the Los Angeles Raiders and the Los Angeles Kings.

A group of sixth-graders dressed in a variety of outfits including shorts and T-shirts were lined up to serve as models of acceptably dressed students.

Eleven-year-old Logan Judah said he wasn’t too sure about the rules.

“I don’t know what kind of problems wearing Raiders gear would get you in up here,” he said.

Architects designed Mesa Verde for team-teaching, clustering classrooms so that groups of teachers from various disciplines can work together, integrating the subjects of math, history and English. Science classrooms are grouped in their own separate cluster near a large technology lab, where students will work with computers.

“There will be a lot of innovation here,” said Debbie Jewell, who teaches English and history. “We’re new, so we won’t get caught in the trap of doing what we’ve always done. We’ll be able to establish our own style of teaching. It’s very exciting.”

Standing in the doorway of her new, mostly empty classroom, Jewell met with parents and students, who poked their heads in to take a look.

While Mesa Verde’s library has a wall of windows looking out over the valley, Jewell’s room--like most other classrooms in the school--has windows only in the door, with views of the quad.

“One of the things that teachers recommended when (architects) were drawing up the plans is that the classrooms be set up so that students weren’t distracted from learning,” Principal Lynn Edmonds said. “They’ll have plenty of opportunity to see the view from the library, the quad or the playing fields.”

Before being assigned to Mesa Verde, Edmonds was co-principal for a year at Chaparral Middle School, where most of Mesa Verde’s 30 teachers worked last year. Before coming to Moorpark, Edmonds was a middle school principal in Fillmore.

“I know from experience that we are very lucky here in Moorpark,” she said. “For seven years they’ve been trying to get a middle school built in Fillmore and it’s still not done. This took two years, and look how beautiful it is.”

To keep up with the rapid growth in the city over the last 10 years, the Moorpark Unified School District has had to build four elementary schools, a high school and a continuation school. The new middle school will help relieve the burden on Chaparral, which was overcrowded, officials said. Although class size at Chaparral never exceeded 30 students, officials had to set up a row of temporary buildings to accommodate the nearly 1,300 students attending classes last year. This year, about 800 students will attend Mesa Verde and 500 will remain at Chaparral.

“We’re set for middle schools for a while,” school board member Tom Baldwin said.

“The real beauty of this is it didn’t cost a dime in local taxpayer money,” he added. “And if you look at it, I think you’ll agree with my humble opinion that it’s the most beautiful campus in the county.”