CSU Campus May House Grade School

Cal State University officials hope to convince a Camarillo-area school district to join in opening an elementary school at the new home of CSU Channel Islands.

Trustees from the Pleasant Valley Elementary School District will tour the former Camarillo State Hospital grounds this afternoon, asked by CSU officials to consider whether the children’s building at the former hospital could be transformed into an elementary school.

CSU officials imagine a grade school where students seeking teaching credentials could do their student teaching right on campus, said Howard Hamilton, Pleasant Valley’s associate superintendent.

Although there are no homes in the area of the new university, he said, the district could create an open-enrollment or a specialized magnet school where students could gain access to the university’s technology, libraries, science laboratories and other facilities.

Hamilton said CSU has asked the school district to make a nonbinding decision within a few months so the proposed school can be included in architectural plans.

Still, neither CSU nor the school district has talked money. The district probably would lease the building from CSU, part of a revenue-raising strategy envisioned by state university officials to finance operations.

Although Pleasant Valley is not a rapidly growing school district, it is, much like schools across the state, bursting at the seams under state class-size reduction measures, Hamilton said.

“We need to study it,” Hamilton said. “It would be foolish for us to say yes without looking at this from every angle.”

CSU officials could not be reached on Friday.