Camarillo School Unification Drive Heats Up

It’s the educational equivalent of a divorce, complete with custody dispute.

Officials with Camarillo’s elementary school district are studying a plan to bring award-winning Adolfo Camarillo High School under their control. Problem is, the Oxnard Union High School District already has custody of the school and isn’t looking to give it up.

The process known as unification has been a topic of casual discussion in Camarillo for years. In recent days, however, unification has become the burning issue about town, kindled by interest from two newly elected school trustees and a grass-roots parents’ group.

As early as today, a consultant could deliver a unification study to the Pleasant Valley School District for trustees’ consideration at a Dec. 10 meeting. The study, an update of an earlier report, will look at the financial, racial and educational implications of such a move, which could take more than two years to complete.

The report is likely to trigger an emotional debate that could pit neighboring communities against each other.

“As a parent, I want what’s best for my kids,” said Ann O’Grady, a Camarillo mother of five who circulated a petition asking the Pleasant Valley school board to consider unification. “If the study comes back positive, great. Let’s move forward. If it comes back negative, then forget it.

“I don’t say this will be a breeze,” she added. “I know we may suffer for a few years, but it will be worth it. Is it the best thing for the education of Camarillo kids? I think it would be.”

While backers argue that the move would help bolster curriculum, some Oxnard officials fear that it would further segregate whites and Latinos in the heavily minority Oxnard high school district, which covers grades 9 to 12. Officials at Pleasant Valley, which comprises kindergarten through eighth grade, said this is not their intention.

“How can you say [Camarillo High] has problems with curriculum when it’s recognized nationally?” asked Robert Valles, Oxnard Union High trustee. “Are there other motives to unification other than curriculum? [Unification advocates] want to control their own students. I guess they’re trying to shelter them from the real world.

“If I wasn’t comfortable with the diversity in the Oxnard district or in California, I would move out of the state,” he added. “They’re not addressing it, but race is the major undercurrent here. I guess they don’t want their children with our diversity.”

On its face, the unification proposal makes logistical sense. But the details prove dicier.

Camarillo is a growing city of 61,000--larger than Moorpark, which has a unified school district. Camarillo High School, which is full to capacity, is already within the city and elementary school district’s boundaries.

If the district were unified, Pleasant Valley trustees could craft a curriculum that flows logically from the fundamentals instilled in kindergarten through the rigors of advanced-placement classes in high school.

High school parents wouldn’t have to drive to school board meetings in Oxnard to tell trustees their concerns. They would have ample opportunity to build relationships with administrators.

“If you were to wave a magic wand and create the city of Camarillo right now, you would make the school district unified,” said Pleasant Valley Supt. Andy LaCouture, who has not taken a position on unification. “It just makes sense.”

Meanwhile, Camarillo High School--recently honored with a Blue Ribbon award, the federal education department’s highest honor--has built a history as the academic jewel in the Oxnard Union High School District.

Camarillo High students routinely post the highest test scores in the district and some of the highest in all of Ventura County.

Racial Concerns

Students from predominantly white Camarillo help diversify the Oxnard district, which is about 27% white and 73% minority. If the 3,300 Camarillo children were to leave Oxnard, the remaining district would be much more segregated: 14% with and 86% minority (overwhelmingly Latino), according to calculations by Oxnard Assistant Supt. Richard Canady.

Numbers such as these are what’s troubling Valles. He and his colleagues have not taken a formal stance on unification, but have retained a lawyer to help protect Oxnard’s interests.

Camarillo mother Jennifer H. Miller, on a slate with two others, campaigned for the school board on a unification platform.

Miller and slate-mate Ron Speakman were both elected, along with incumbent Val Rains, who said she would take a critical look at unification before making any decisions.

Miller said unification is not a racial matter; rather, it involves local control of curriculum. Were the school district to unify, Miller envisions more technology and music education for students.

“We want to keep our tax dollars here at home and our kids here at home,” she said. “When we approached Oxnard about this, it was like, ‘What are we doing wrong?’ It’s not that at all. We’re big enough now; we’re old enough now. We want to grow up and be on our own.”

For Pleasant Valley to be on its own, a number of obstacles would have to be overcome.

In the upcoming consultant’s report, the proposed split from Oxnard will be evaluated on nine criteria. Among them:

* Whether the split would result in an equitable division of property, from bond money, school buildings and buses down to lawn mowers and textbooks.

* Whether unification would promote discrimination or segregation.

* Whether the move would make it more expensive to house students.

* Whether unification would adversely affect the financial status and management structure of both districts.

Unification Requirements

Depending on what the report says, Pleasant Valley trustees could drop the matter altogether. Or they could begin the unification process, which would take a minimum of two years.

The first step would be gathering signatures from 25% of the registered voters within Pleasant Valley’s boundaries and petitioning the little-known Ventura County Committee on School District Organization to allow the unification process to move forward.

From there, the unification request would be forwarded to Sacramento, where the nine criteria would be examined anew by Education Department specialists, who would recommend it for approval or rejection by the state Board of Education.

“The guiding principle is . . . would [unification] help the education of kids in the district to be formed?” said Dan Reibson, an Education Department field representative who specializes in school district reorganization. “And, in the district that’s left, would it leave them with adequate resources to work with?

“When we recommend one way or another, the board usually agrees with us, but not always,” he added. “I’d say we’re running 3 to 1 [for] agreement.”

If the state board were to endorse unification, the proposal would still have to land on a ballot and pass muster with a majority of the voters affected. Unification experts say case law differs on whether the affected voters would be only those who live within Pleasant Valley boundaries, or if they would include people in both the Pleasant Valley and Oxnard Union High area.

Once voters were asked to punch their ballots for or against unification, they would also be asked to pick trustees for the new school district. If the new district needs more money, officials could place a school bond measure on the ballot at the same time.

Money and Other Issues

Some critics believe that money and facilities concerns could scuttle the unification proposal, particularly given that it took the Pleasant Valley district five tries to pass a $49-million school bond, finally approved last year. Camarillo residents are also indebted for a $57-million Oxnard High bond, endorsed a year earlier.

Unification proponents, including Miller and Speakman, believe that the Camarillo portion of the Oxnard High bond would belong to the new unified district. Discussion of financial matters--from bond repayment to which district gets which television--would not begin in earnest until unification hits the ballot.

Beyond paying off existing bonds, a unified Pleasant Valley School District would have to contend with housing all of the Camarillo students. Taking care of the Camarillo High students would be easy; they would stay put. However, about 500 more students from Camarillo attend the Oxnard district’s Rio Mesa High. Trustees would have to find a place for them.

According to LaCouture, there are a variety of ways to address the potential facilities crunch: Rio Mesa students could be placed in portable classrooms on the Camarillo campus.

One of the district’s elementary schools could be converted to a makeshift high school. Or, the new district could attempt to build another high school.

LaCouture has not taken a position on unification, saying that decision belongs with school trustees and residents. However, in his previous post in Santa Cruz County, he oversaw the unification of a district.

“The only expensive piece of this is the bricks and mortar,” he said. “Once you add the bricks and mortar piece, unification becomes more expensive. But the state gives you more money” in average daily attendance dollars, the lifeblood of public school funding.

Elementary school districts receive less in average daily attendance funding than unified districts because it is cheaper to run elementary and middle schools than it is to run a full kindergarten to 12th-grade system.

Likewise, high school teachers tend to make more than their elementary counterparts, and a unified district would have to figure out how to continue paying for the Oxnard district’s more generous salary and benefits package. Were unification to occur, teachers at Camarillo High could choose to stay with the Oxnard district or join the new Pleasant Valley system.

While the Oxnard teachers union has not formally weighed in on unification, President Jan Henry said she personally would like to see the bottom line.

“All I can think of is, here’s another drain on finances for both districts--neither one of which seems flush with money,” said Henry, a Camarillo resident who teaches government at Frontier High, Oxnard’s continuation school. “I don’t know that money needs to be spent this way.”

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Ventura County

Unified School Districts

Of the 20 school districts in Ventura County, seven are unified--school systems that serve students from kindergarten through high school. The remaining 13 districts are specialized--elementary and high school districts that only serve students in certain grade levels.

In recent months, some parents and trustees in the Pleasant Valley Elementary School District have proposed unification--which would mean taking control of the award-winning Adolfo Camarillo High School from Oxnard Union High School District. If the process moves forward, it would take at least two years to unify Pleasant Valley.

Here are the county’s unified school districts:

* Conejo Valley Unified School District, unified July 1, 1974.

* Fillmore Unified School District, unified July 1, 1967.

* Moorpark Unified School District, unified July 1, 1981.

* Oak Park Unified School District, unified June 1977.

* Ojai Unified School District, unified July 1, 1966.

* Simi Valley Unified School District, unified July 1, 1936.

* Ventura Unified School District, unified July 1, 1966.