Growing Weekend Crowds Overwhelm School Officials : Recreation: As concerns at Isbell Middle mount over inappropriate behavior and trash, the district this week will consider locking gates.

The scene could have been any public park on a summer afternoon--crowds of men cheered around a soccer field while young mothers and their children rested on the grass eating ice cream or devouring hamburgers.

But this was Santa Paula’s Isbell Middle School, and just a few yards from where teen-agers played basketball last Saturday, there was another kind of scene:

Children, giggling at every roll of the dice, watched gamblers drop dollar bills on the concrete. Dozens of men sipped beer and urinated along the outer walls of classrooms. Food wrappers and broken glass collected in piles on the ground.

Weekend gatherings at the school’s park have outraged school officials, who said that unless the city provides supervision during the weekends, they will vote Thursday to close the grounds and have the police arrest anyone who breaks in.

“I’m appalled with this situation. We don’t mind that people use the campus, but every weekend this place has been filled with debris and other trash that you literally need rubber boots to move around,” said Santa Paula elementary school district Trustee Janet Grant.

At the corner of South 4th Street and Harvard Boulevard, Isbell School has about five open acres that feature three full-sized soccer fields and 11 basketball courts.

Cleaning crews spend up to six hours on Mondays removing broken beer bottles, corn cobs, diapers and human waste from across the campus, Grant said. The school has spent more than $13,000 to clean the grounds and to replace damaged fences and gates, according to district officials.

The public has had access to the campus since the school was founded in 1926, said Grant, who has been a trustee for 13 years. But in the past four months, weekend gatherings have increased from a mere 50 people to as many as 500, she said.

“I have never seen anything like this before,” said Dan Brick, who has worked in the district’s maintenance department for the last 10 years. “The problem has escalated in the past few months and we don’t know why.”

It was during the Fourth of July holiday weekend that public use of the campus got out of control, Grant said.

About 500 people took over the campus, and many of them were drinking, school officials said. When school officials asked the police to break up the throng, officers said they did not have the manpower.

“There was nothing we could do short of calling for law enforcement from all over the county to control that crowd,” said Santa Paula Police Cmdr. Mark Hanson.

Last Saturday afternoon, a crowd of more than 300 people turned the school’s grounds into a swarming play-field.

Santa Paula resident Manuel Magana, 46, said a large number of the residents using the park are farm workers who live near the school.

“This is what they look forward to during the week,” said Magana, who has lived in Santa Paula for 18 years. “For us it’s a cheap and safe way to have fun.”

But Magana, who was watching a soccer game with his wife and 8-month-old son, added that the number of people drinking and gambling at the school grounds has increased recently.

“We used to have only a few people gambling, but it has become very popular and now people are coming from all over,” Magana said. “They know it’s illegal, but they still do it. I don’t think it’s right, so I don’t do it.”

Oxnard resident Junior Sandoval, 28, said he comes to Santa Paula every Saturday to watch the games.

“It’s the thing to do. It’s fun to watch the gambling, and people really just bet for fun,” Sandoval said.

By 6:30 p.m., those playing dice had abandoned the game to bet on what seemed to be the most exciting event of the day: footraces.

As the runners lined up on six grass-free lanes near the basketball courts, nearly everyone rushed over to watch.

Yamilet Valladolid, 20, whose uncle was participating in the race, said that runners come from all over the county to compete.

While Valladolid explained how her relatives in Mexico love to race on foot, a nearby young man took a last sip from a can of beer, threw the can on the grass and then smashed it with his foot.

As he walked away, another young man walked to the can, picked it up and dropped it into a trash bin about 100 feet away.

“Most people here just want to have a good time,” Valladolid said. “The sad part is that sometimes this type of event also attracts individuals who have no respect for the place.”

But as early as next weekend, both the good and bad guys may be banned from the school’s grounds.

Trustee Eugene Marzec said the district board is going to decide on Thursday whether to lock the school’s gates on weekends.

“We have tried to be good neighbors . . . but things have gotten out of hand,” Marzec said. “We can’t afford to pay for the school to be cleaned week after week.”

The board has asked the city to operate a weekend recreational program on campus, providing supervision of the crowd, Marzec said. While city officials have agreed to review the request, they have said it is unlikely they can find the resources to support such a program.

District officials said they are also concerned about the health hazards that may emerge from trash left on the campus.

“My [12-year-old] daughter has told me that she has had to step over human waste to get to her PE [physical education] class on Monday mornings,” Trustee Dan Robles said. “That can’t continue.”