OXNARD : High School Campus Opening Postponed

Oxnard High School students and teachers who have been anticipating a move to the school’s new campus on Gonzales Road early next year will have to wait until summer, officials said.

Because of delays in completing the new school’s performing arts building, Oxnard Union High School District officials have postponed opening the campus until the end of the school year.

The gleaming $40-million campus, situated just south of Victoria Avenue, will replace the dilapidated 43-year-old school on 5th Street.

School officials had initially hoped that Oxnard High’s teachers and 2,200 students could move shortly after Christmas vacation, during the short break between first and second semester.

Then construction delays pushed the completion date to February, and officials promised that the school could open during spring break.

But at a school board meeting Wednesday, Assistant Supt. Bob Brown announced that the school’s performing arts building will not be complete until June.

Although the school’s other buildings will be finished by the end of February, Brown said moving onto the campus before it was complete would force school officials to test all campus electrical and alarm systems twice.

Oxnard High Principal Daisy Tatum told the board that some of the teachers were disappointed about the postponement.

But she said she will try to soften the blow to students by giving seniors the option to hold their graduation ceremony at the new school’s stadium in June.

“These kids have a wonderful opportunity,” Tatum said.

“They can be either the very last class to graduate from the old school or the very first class to graduate from the new. It’s up to them.”