1995-96 School Year Brings Change for Many : Education: As classes begin this week, a new campus opens, and others introduce uniforms and college-style schedules. Also--there’s more money.

Almost 120,000 Ventura County students will return to school this week--facing changes in some districts that include a new high school campus, school uniforms and college-style class schedules.

And educators who run the county’s public school systems cite one other major change for the schools themselves--the prospect of the first increase in education funding in five years.

After years of painful budget cuts, Gov. Pete Wilson and the Legislature have approved a budget that promises raises for many of the county’s teachers, principals, administrators and support staff.

On top of that, the state has shaken loose other funds that local school officials say will position them to update classroom technology, fix leaky roofs, bolster supplies and attend to other problems that have been neglected.

“The picture is much more exciting this year with the extra money from the state,” said Marilyn Lippiatt, superintendent of the Oak Park Unified School District. “We haven’t decided exactly what to do with it, but we have lots and lots of plans.”

The biggest change of the upcoming school year will occur at the new Oxnard High School, the flagship of the five-campus Oxnard Union High School District.

On Tuesday, hundreds of high school students will take their first stroll through the gleaming new $33-million campus on Gonzales Road that has been built to replace the aging 5th Street school.

The new building, with Spanish tiles, arched ceilings and tastefully muted colors, looks more like a spacious, well-tended community college than a public high school.

It took more than a decade to plan and complete, with the state paying nearly the entire cost because the old campus, in the flight path of a nearby airport, posed a danger to students and employees.

Teachers and administrators were rushing to unpack boxes at the new school last week and prepare their classrooms for 2,400 students expected to show up this week. Some teachers had as many as 150 boxes to unpack, said Principal Daisy Tatum.

Marta Landa, a teacher at Oxnard High for 23 years, said she was having a difficult time deciding what to throw out and what to keep. Empty cardboard boxes lay strewn over the new gray carpeting in Landa’s modern classroom, next to more unopened boxes.

“I’ve saved students’ writings for 23 years,” Landa said. “You know, the ‘Odes to this and that.’ It’s really hard to get rid of them.”

Like other teachers, Landa said she is overwhelmed by the beauty of the campus’s physical setting and the state-of-the-art facilities in classrooms, gymnasiums and laboratories. The 52-acre school is surrounded by lemon groves, eucalyptus trees and farm fields.

“You get the ocean breezes and you see the mountains,” Landa said with a sigh. “I feel so privileged.”

At some schools in Moorpark, Ventura and Oxnard, something else will look new and different: some of the students. Pupils at Arroyo West elementary school in Moorpark and Sheridan Way elementary in Ventura for the first time have the option of wearing uniforms--a growing trend in Ventura County.

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They will join students at Garden Grove elementary in Simi Valley, which started a voluntary-uniforms policy last year. And students at Emilie Ritchen elementary school in Oxnard are expected to adopt a mandatory policy by January.

Uniformity in school clothing--at least at the grade-school level--is a movement that Ventura Unified Supt. Joseph Spirito would like to see more of in his 15,200-student district.

“We’re hoping that even if schools don’t want to move to uniforms, they will at least tighten up their dress codes.”

One school in the middle-class Conejo Valley Unified School District has already done just that. Thousand Oaks High School students will have to cover up their midriffs and leave gang attire at home starting this week, school officials said.

A new, stricter dress code--one that led to student protests when it was approved last spring--goes into effect this year.

In other east county schools, block schedules continue to be a growing trend. In the 17,850-student Conejo Valley district, Sequoia Intermediate will become the fourth school in the area to adopt the college-like schedule next year.

Under the new arrangement, students will attend three 90-minute classes each day instead of the traditional six 55-minute classes. Newbury Park High School, which takes Sequoia graduates, Oak Park High School and Medea Creek Middle School have adopted the schedules in recent years.

In western Ventura County, Santa Paula High School will also adopt a block schedule. Encouraged by Newbury Park’s success with the program, Santa Paula Union High School District Supt. Robert H. Fisher said he is hopeful the schedule will improve student grades and test scores within a year.

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But Hueneme High has had less success with its 5-year-old block scheduling. So Hueneme is reverting back this week to the traditional schedule, said William Studt, superintendent of the Oxnard Union High School District.

The change comes despite protests from students--and some teachers--who wanted to keep the schedule intact. The hoped-for improvement in pupil scores for the school, where many students speak little or no English, has not occurred, Studt said.

“I imagine there will be some unhappy students, but that’s the way it is,” he said. “Once they get back into the six-period schedule, I think they will be fine.”

Students at Los Cerritos Intermediate School in Thousand Oaks will be adjusting to something else: sixth-graders.

The school will expand from 670 students to nearly 850, school officials said. All of the sixth-graders volunteered to attend the campus for its pilot year as a middle school.

Principal Pat Pelletier said she is looking forward to the influx of new pupils. Interacting with older students and participating in sports programs during lunch will be a great experience for them, Pelletier said.

In the mammoth Simi Valley Unified School District, changes are also occurring, if on a smaller scale. Those entering the 18,500-student district’s kindergarten, first and second grades will miss something their predecessors received: grades.

Following a pilot program at Park View elementary school, teachers of the district’s youngest students will instead send pupils home with a written evaluation of their skills.

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The goal of the new report cards is to provide parents with information about their child’s academic strengths and weaknesses without prematurely molding them into a category, said Deputy Supt. Susan Parks. “When you start assigning letter grades, kids start sorting themselves at an early age,” Parks said.

Enrollment in many county school districts is expected to remain flat or increase very slightly. The highest growth in student enrollment, by far, is expected to occur in the upscale Oak Park Unified School District.

Oak Park is expecting about 2,900 students this year, 9% higher than the 1994-95 academic year, Lippiatt said. She attributed the increase to the large numbers of families moving into new subdivisions in the fast-growing area.

Lippiatt said she also believes the district’s reputation for high academic standards is drawing students. Oak Park students regularly outperform their peers in Ventura County on tests measuring academic achievement.

Lippiatt said she has had to turn away many families from outside the district who are seeking a transfer to attend Oak Park.

“We are filling to capacity now, and we have an obligation to reserve spaces in the Oak Park schools for Oak Park residents.”

Apart from the more visible changes occurring at county schools, educators in district offices throughout the county are planning how to spend the first real increases since 1990 in funding for public education.

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The state budget signed by Wilson in August includes a 3.5% cost-of-living increase for education, recurring funds that amount to an additional $10 million for the county’s 20 school districts this year.

Many school officials have said the bulk of that money will be applied to raises for teachers, counselors, secretaries and other employees who have received little or no pay hikes in recent years.

And local districts will also receive at least another $6 million in one-time money, generated as the result of a legal settlement over how long-deferred Proposition 98 funds should be disbursed. Additional one-time funds will flow to local districts in the form of block grants, educators said.

Most of the Proposition 98 and block-grant funds are earmarked to update computer technology in the classroom and to repair and maintain school buildings that are growing old, county school budget managers said.

After years of scraping by with bare-bones budgets, the influx of cash is a welcome sight to educators.

The Ventura Unified School District, for example, is in the midst of selecting a revamped computer system that will bring students access to the global Internet. The $1-million system will also give district administrators the ability to send e-mail, said Ventura’s Spirito.

“Right now when I arrange a meeting, my secretary has to call every one of the [24] schools,” he said. “This way, I’ll be able to do it with one message via the computer.”

Bernard Korenstein, superintendent of the Oxnard Elementary School District, said he, too, is encouraged by the greater flexibility in this year’s school budget.

“The big push this year will be updating technology,” Korenstein said. “Knowing there is money there to potentially do something is exciting to us. We will be asking, ‘What will technology look like in this district? What do our students need?’ ”

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Back to School

About 103,000 Ventura County students will head back to school this week, joining another 17,000 pupils who have already started classes. The Oak Park Unified School District, an area of rapid growth, is projecting the highest enrollment increase for the 1995-96 school year. The opening day and enrollment estimates for each district are listed below.

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Estimated Gain from School district Opening day enrollment 1994-95 Briggs Elementary Wednesday 411 +5.0% Conejo Valley Unified Wednesday 17,850 same Fillmore Unified July 31 3,450 same Hueneme Elementary Aug. 29 8,000 +1.5% Mesa Union Elementary Aug. 28 390 +4.0% Moorpark Unified Wednesday 6,400 +4.0% Mupu Elementary Thursday 120 same Oak Park Unified Thursday 2,969 +9.0% Ocean View Elementary Aug. 30 2,410 same Ojai Unified Wednesday 4,000 same Oxnard Elementary Wednesday 13,300 +4.0% Oxnard Union High Tuesday 12,800 +2.0% Pleasant Valley Elementary Wednesday 6,944 same Rio Elementary Wednesday 2,800 same Santa Clara Elementary Wednesday 34 same Santa Paula Elementary Wednesday 3,350 +2.0% Santa Paula Union High Wednesday 1,200 same Simi Valley Unified Wednesday 18,500 same Somis Union Elementary Aug. 30 320 +8.0% Ventura Unified Tuesday 15,200 same

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Source: Ventura County school districts