La Reina, Oak Park Different Yet Similar

Just a few miles separate the parochial La Reina High School in Thousand Oaks and the public Oak Park High School, which together represent some of the best schooling--private or public--Ventura County has to offer.

Different in many respects, the schools are most striking for what they have in common: Situated in affluent, suburban neighborhoods, both have relatively uncrowded campuses. They post test scores and dropout rates that would make administrators of urban school districts envious. And both are known for excellence.

The 615-student La Reina is an all-girls school that charges $3,800 in tuition annually and requires four years of religion classes.

“The quality of our education is high,” said Sister Mary Lisa Megaffin, La Reina’s principal. “And academics are very important. But I try to remind the girls that we are here before God first and foremost. God isn’t going to ask for their GPAs.”

Oak Park, meanwhile, is a free public high school of 700 students with a reputation for parental involvement and strong academics.

“We operate under some considerable obstacles” not faced by private schools, which have to comply with fewer state and national regulations, said Oak Park Supt. Marilyn Lippiatt. “And I think our high school is phenomenal.”

In a statistical comparison, the schools shape up similarly.

In 1996, La Reina students scored an average of 604 on the verbal and 545 on the math on the SAT, where 800 is the highest score on each section. That is higher than Oak Park students, who garnered an average of 531 verbal and 530 math.

The pair offer about a dozen Advanced Placement classes each, ranging from physics and economics to studio art and literature. Their dropout rates are all but nonexistent.

At Oak Park, students face bigger class sizes, with 29 students for every faculty member. The student-to-teacher ratio at the cross-town school is 15 to 1.

Graduates from either school are likely to be accepted to an array of colleges and universities, with most students opting to stay in California’s university systems. In recent years, La Reina grads have enrolled in Bryn Mawr, Gonzaga, Northwestern, Stanford and Yale. Oak Park alumni go on to Pepperdine, Stanford, Brown, Northwestern and the University of Pennsylvania.

Among the 120-student Class of 1997, Oak Park boasts one National Merit finalist and three semifinalists. La Reina High’s 87 seniors include five scholarship semifinalists.