Trustees Name New Magnet High School

A month after rejecting the name Odyssey for the city’s new magnet high school because it didn’t carry enough historical and geographical significance, Simi Valley school trustees on Tuesday chose this new moniker: Santa Susana High School.

The decision ignores a committee’s most recent suggestion in favor of a name that the board liked from the outset.

Trustee Carla Kurachi said students were vehemently opposed to the name, which comes from the old name for the east end of town.

But three of the five trustees said the names chosen by the committee--Center High School, a Performing Arts and Technology High; Valley of the Winds (playing off the Indian meaning of Simi); and Venture High--lacked oomph.

“It lacks luster,” said trustee Debbie Sandland of the name Center High. “It doesn’t have any appeal to me.”

Trustee Norman Walker said that although students preferred the original name of Odyssey, they would get used to the new name.

“It will gain acceptance in time, and they will live with it,” he said.

Trustees agreed to keep the committee’s recommendation to use the tag line Performing Arts and Technology High School.

The new school, which will be devoted to technology and performing arts, is scheduled to open in the fall with about 800 students.

The school will be located in the building that once housed Sequoia Junior High. Trustees voted last year to close that school and convert it to a four-year magnet school.