Parents Protest High School Busing Plan

Nearly two months after trustees voted to change attendance boundaries to relieve overcrowding at Buena High School, a group of parents and students remains determined to get that vote reversed.

At Tuesday’s Ventura Unified School District board meeting, nearly 100 people, including a group calling itself Citizens for Responsible Decisions, demanded answers to several questions they feel have not been addressed by the board.

They also asked the board to reverse its decision to send nearly 200 students from east Ventura neighborhoods to cross-town Ventura High School--a measure that will relieve short-term overcrowding at Buena--and instead address the situation at Buena in its long-range plans. The board began considering long-range plans last month, and the process is likely to be lengthy.

Board members listened patiently but said they would not go back on their unanimous vote.

The meeting was temporarily disrupted shortly before 10 p.m. when an unidentified parent began yelling at the board, accusing members of not listening to parents’ concerns.

Earlier in the evening, parents and students were outspoken in their opposition to the move.

“We are asking the board to rescind their vote and wait for the long-term plans to come out,” Henry Vega, one of the leaders of the parent group, said before the meeting.

Some parents, who presented the board with a list of concerns, suggested that the district may have misspent money collected from developers’ fees.

“Fees are there to mitigate the impact of new developments,” Vega said.

The money from developer fees should be used to do architectural studies for permanent expansions at Buena, said James Craig, another of the parent leaders.

The parents also questioned the school district’s enrollment data, an issue that was brought up repeatedly at earlier hearings on the busing plan. The enrollment data are important because they were used to justify the decision to bus east Ventura students to Ventura High.

But board members stood behind the numbers and the recommendations from the district.

“I am satisfied that the information given to us by the district is accurate,” said board President Cliff Rodrigues before the meeting.

Several parents also said that in making its decision deciding to bus the east Ventura students, the board had ignored the psychological impact the move would have on the students and the environmental impact and increased risk the busing would create for the community at large.

But before the meeting, Supt. Joseph Spirito, who had met last week with some of the concerned parents, countered those claims. The impact on traffic will be minor, and the district is only required to do an environmental impact study if it moves 25% or more of its students at one school, he said.

“We have also offered psychological services for the students at Buena,” Spirito said before the meeting. But only four students have come forward to use them, he said.

However, several students who addressed the board broke down in tears as they implored board members to go back on their decision.

Spirito said he hoped the boundary issue could be put to rest so the district could tend to other matters.

The remark angered some parents. “I’m not too concerned with disrupting your agenda, because you’re disrupting my child’s life,” said Jim Prikosovits, whose daughter attends Buena.