District Again Shelves Plan to Open Basics School : Education: Program was to begin this fall. Ventura Unified delays it another year as officials try to rally support at Will Rogers School. Supt. Spirito says he remains committed to the idea.

After months of promising that a back-to-basics school would open this fall, Ventura Unified School District educators said Wednesday that the alternative school will be delayed for at least a year.

It is the latest setback in Supt. Joseph Spirito’s 15-month quest to offer what he says are educational choices to parents of children in the city’s public schools.

“It is discouraging because it’s not happening as soon as I wanted it,” Spirito said. “But I have faith that we can pull it off.”

Last spring, parents of elementary-age children turned down a proposal by Spirito to require elementary students to wear uniforms. A few months later, Spirito suggested a similar policy for middle school students, but school principals shot down the idea before it was presented to parents.

Now the basics school, whose opening has been delayed twice since Spirito first proposed it in January, 1994, has been temporarily shelved again while educators determine if they can drum up support for it at Will Rogers elementary school.

Spirito told a committee of parents, teachers and administrators who have been working on the basics format that he is undeterred by the delays and will push ahead with the school idea.

As envisioned by district officials, the basics school would require students to wear uniforms and parents to become closely involved with their children’s education. Parents would be required, for instance, to volunteer at the school and promise to make their children do homework.

It would have open enrollment for students from throughout the district, officials said.

The biggest hurdle administrators have faced is finding a campus where there is sufficient support to convert the entire school. After a districtwide survey earlier this year showed no majority of support for a basics program at any one school, Spirito suggested it could be scaled back to a school-within-a-school format in four classrooms at Will Rogers School.

But those classrooms, currently in use by Ventura Adult Education, will not be available until next spring, Assistant Supt. Gerald Dannenberg told the basics committee Wednesday.

That pushes back the opening date for a basics program, but also gives administrators more time to reconsider converting an entire school, Spirito told the committee. Will Rogers is the best choice because Principal Jose Montano supports the basics program and has a staff that will also buy into it, Spirito said.

Montano said he informally polled his staff Wednesday and they are receptive to the proposed change. He will hold a series of meetings with parents over the coming school year to gauge their support for the program.

In a districtwide survey taken in January, 57% of Will Rogers parents who responded said they would support a basics program, while 44% said they didn’t want it. There was similar support at other elementary schools, but administrators settled on Will Rogers because of Montano’s support, Spirito said.

Montano said he will take another survey to determine how many students will stay at Will Rogers if it converts to the back-to-basics school. He believes many parents will opt to keep their children at Will Rogers because it is their neighborhood school.

District administrators said students who currently attend Will Rogers will be given priority to attend the basics school if they so choose. Parents who opt out will be directed to other nearby elementary schools, such as Loma Vista and Lincoln, Dannenberg said.

Students who live in other areas of the city would enter a lottery to win seats in the schools, he said. In the survey taken earlier this year, 52% of parents districtwide expressed interest in a basics school, while 48% said they were not interested.

But only 486 said they could provide transportation to a school outside their neighborhood, a requirement necessary for enrollment, officials said.