Plan to Shift Control of Camarillo High Raises Racial Issue

A proposal to shift control of Adolfo Camarillo High School to a local district may be rejected by the state because it would significantly change the racial mix of Oxnard Union High School District, according to a report released Friday.

Moreover, if the proposed reorganization were to occur, the Pleasant Valley School District would not have enough room to house all 3,000 students, according to the report by Carmel-based Education Research Inc.

The move would force the Pleasant Valley district to adopt one of several possible alternatives, including year-round school programs and building another school.

The report will be discussed Thursday by the board of the Pleasant Valley School District.

“I thought the report was very thorough and should make for some interesting debate,” said Stephen Hanke, assistant superintendent for education at Pleasant Valley. “And that, I think, is exactly what it’s supposed to do. . . . This proposal is still just an idea, and there are a lot of issues that need to be discussed and worked out before anything happens.”

The proposal would place 2,900 students from Camarillo High School in Camarillo and Rio High School in Oxnard under the administration of the Pleasant Valley district.

Long a topic of conversation in Camarillo, the issue of unification has flared in recent days with the election of two new school trustees who made the matter central to their campaign platforms.

The study, which is an update to a report compiled in 1992, examined the racial, financial and educational effects associated with the proposed transfer.

According to the report, Oxnard Union High School District’s student population is 28% white and 72% other, 58% of which is Latino.

The proposed transfer would change the district’s student body to 16% white and 69% Latino, with the remainder constituting other minority groups. This could jeopardize the proposal if state officials find that the resulting racial mix at Oxnard Union High School District is unacceptable.

The report states that “the issue remains of whether 50% to 55% difference in Hispanic and white populations is cause for disapproval by the State Board of Education.”

The Board of Education would have final say as to whether the unification could proceed and would not make a decision until a careful analysis of the proposal had been made, said Deborah Herrmann of the board’s District Organization and Transportation Unit.

“Whether or not those numbers are statistically significant, I can’t say,” she said. “They could be, but we take into account a number of other factors before we make a decision, so it’s far too early to say.”

There is also the issue of whether Pleasant Valley would be able to fully accommodate the needs of a 30% larger student population. One question is whether the proposed unified district would have to build a new school to house the roughly 600 Camarillo students who now attend Rio High School.

Unification proponents said bringing Adolfo Camarillo into the Pleasant Valley district would allow officials to tailor their long-term curriculum to flow from the fundamentals taught in primary grades to the advanced courses taken in high school.

They maintain it would also allow parents to develop closer relationships with teachers and school officials and make it easier for them to provide input to the board.

“I can certainly see why people are pushing for this,” said Hanke, who has not publicly taken a position on the issue. “To a lot of people, this seems appropriate.”

Officials at Oxnard Union also have not taken a position on the issue and are planning to meet with legal consultants next week to go over the proposal.

But Supt. William Studt said the issues are far from resolved.

“It could turn out that this could be good for our district, but I’m not convinced of anything yet,” he said. “There are a lot of questions that need to be answered before this goes anywhere.”

He added that the district may hold a series of public hearings on the matter after it adopts an official position.