Homeowners to Decide Fate of Bond Drive : Education: A phone poll will be conducted to gauge the level of electoral support for a $45-million issue to finance a new high school in Oxnard.

Homeowners in Oxnard, Camarillo, Port Hueneme and some unincorporated Ventura County areas may be asked to foot a $45-million bond to pay for construction of a new campus in the Oxnard high school district, officials said Thursday.

A new high school--and possibly even two--are needed to head off overcrowding in the Oxnard Union High School District’s five campuses, said Richard Canady, the district’s business manager.

A consultant will conduct a telephone poll of homeowners who live within the school district’s large boundaries over the next six weeks to determine whether there is electoral support for a bond measure, Canady said.

If at least 70% of those questioned support the issue, it could be placed before voters as early as November, said district Supt. Bill Studt in a report to the board this week. To pass, the measure requires approval from two-thirds of the voters.

“It is a problem that is there, it is facing us and we need to be proactive,” Studt said.

Some board members said they are concerned about asking homeowners to pay higher property taxes at a time when the fate of the nearby Point Mugu naval base is uncertain.

And Trustee Nancy Koch pointed out at the trustees’ meeting Wednesday that the Pleasant Valley School District on June 6 will ask many of the same voters to pass a $55-million bond to build new elementary schools in the Camarillo area.

Koch reiterated her concern in an interview Thursday.

“Any tax we ask for would be on top of the tax that Pleasant Valley is already asking for,” Koch said. “When anything has to be passed by two-thirds, it’s really hard.”

If the $45-million Oxnard high school district bond is approved by voters, property owners in the district would pay about $7.50 for every $100,000 of assessed valuation each year, Canady said.

The owner of a residence worth $200,000, for instance, would pay an extra $15 in property taxes each year. The debt would be paid off after 30 years, Canady said.

The district may ask those polled if they would be willing to finance a larger bond, Studt said. He said $45 million would only cover the cost of one new high school, and it’s possible the district will need two new campuses to accommodate growth over the next decade.

One of the new campuses would be built on 50 acres that the district owns on Gonzales Road just east of Oxnard Boulevard, Canady said. Administrators are looking in the Camarillo area for a possible second campus, he said.

The district’s newest school, the Oxnard High School campus on Gonzales Road just east of Victoria Avenue, is a replacement school and does nothing to ease the space problem, Canady said.

The sprawling district stretches from the Santa Clara River on the northwest to the Moorpark city limits on the east, south to the Pacific Ocean and west to the westernmost reaches of Oxnard.

District educators have known for years that a crush of students now in grammar and middle schools are moving toward high school, Canady said. Average daily attendance in the Oxnard Elementary School District grew from 10,500 in 1984 to 12,600 last year.

And attendance in the Pleasant Valley district rose from 5,400 in 1984 to 6,800 in 1993-94. Both of those elementary districts funnel students into the Oxnard high school district.

In 1991, the district placed a $45-million bond measure on the ballot, Canady said. It failed, receiving 57% of the vote, he said.

Clearly, administrators said, it is time to try again.

The district’s five high schools--Camarillo, Rio Mesa, Oxnard, Channel Island and Hueneme--are designed to hold 10,500 students, or about 2,250 each, Studt told trustees at Wednesday’s meeting.

Combined enrollment was 12,500 this school year. Administrators have coped in recent years by adding portable classrooms and cramming more desks into each classroom, Studt said.

But the temporary classrooms can only be used for so long before repair costs exceed their value, he said. If nothing is done to alleviate the space crunch, each of the high schools will have at least 3,000 students by the year 2000, Studt said.

Besides overburdening facilities, crowding also takes a psychological toll, Canady said.

“Kids don’t have breathing room,” said Canady, a former high school principal. “There are too many rats in the maze. Tensions grow.”

Camarillo homeowner Dolores Maus, 65, said she would think long and hard before voting to pay higher property taxes.

“With the payments spread out over 30 years like that, it doesn’t sound too bad,” Maus said. “But let’s get started on that [California State] university before we start building any more high schools.”