School Trustees Hold Off on Boundary Shift

Worried that a plan to redraw the boundaries between Moorpark’s elementary schools could cost at least $200,000, school district trustees say they want more information before deciding the proposal’s fate.

Their concern came after district Supt. Tom Duffy told trustees last week that changing the boundaries now--instead of waiting until the planned Casey Road elementary school opens in 1998--could crowd some schools beyond capacity and force the district to buy or lease more portable classrooms.

Trustees asked Duffy to prepare an estimate of how much the move, which would affect children living in a roughly five-block rectangle of downtown streets, would cost.

“Right now, I think we’re just playing with numbers,” trustee Clint Harper said. “I want to know what we’re buying into.”

Harper had moments earlier abstained from voting on whether to move forward with the plan immediately in spite of the cost. The rest of the board deadlocked, with Tom Baldwin and Gary Cabriales in favor and David Pollock and Greg Barker opposed.

The proposal would take some children, most of them Latino, who now attend Peach Hill School and move them to nearby Mountain Meadows School in an effort to improve the ethnic balance of both campuses.

Under an unofficial district policy, the ethnic makeup of each Moorpark school should reflect--within 8%--the city’s overall demographic mix. Although Latinos comprise about 25% of the city’s population, Latino students make up about 47% of the student body at Peach Hill and 22.5% at Mountain Meadows.

Moving the children would bring the ratios closer to the citywide average. But it would also swell the number of children attending Mountain Meadows, which now has about 720 students. If attendance boundaries switch for the coming school year, about 820 children would go to Mountain Meadows, 40 more than the school’s estimated capacity.

If, however, district officials wait for the new school to open before changing boundaries, some of the children now at Mountain Meadows would move to the Casey Road school, thereby making room for children switching from Peach Hill.