Students Rename Continuation School

It wasn’t much of a contest.

To avoid confusion with two other schools in the area, Waverly High School’s 20 students were given the choice of renaming their small continuation school Century, Lakeview Canyon or Sherwood high school.

The hands-down winner with the students--whose campus actually comprises two classrooms at Westlake High School in Thousand Oaks--was Century High School.

“We had the kids discuss the options and vote--since it’s their school,” Principal Jim Martin said. The original choice was Pacific High School, but that name had been snatched by a continuation school in Ventura. Century then became the natural option.

“They came up with Century because we’re coming up on a new century and because it represents the philosophy of a new beginning to them,” he said.

The continuation school is what the California Education Department calls a “small, necessary school”--a place where students who have failed too many classes or had truancy problems can blossom under a 6-1 student-teacher ratio.

Originally situated on the campus of Waverly Adult School, the continuation school was also dubbed Waverly. But once the students and teachers moved to Westlake last month, the continuation school was often mistaken for the adult school and vice-versa. Further complicating matters were initials--both Westlake and Waverly highs were affectionately called WHS.

No more. The Conejo Valley Unified School District’s trustees agreed to the new name at Thursday night’s meeting.

The name change won’t cost a cent, Martin noted.

“We’re so new and so small that we don’t have any stationery to change,” he said with a laugh.