School Work

School is out, but campuses across Ventura County are buzzing with power tools and machinery renovating the aging buildings this summer.

For many districts, the recent passage of school bonds has translated into a bustling season of campus overhauls.

“This is probably the busiest summer for facilities improvements since the 1960s,” said Jorge Gutierrez, Ventura Unified School District’s facilities and maintenance director. “The bond helped a lot. The bond was instrumental for us in doing these projects.”

But even those who failed to persuade voters in bond elections--namely the Moorpark and Conejo Valley unified districts--are performing repairs that must be done.

In Tuesday’s sweltering heat, a nine-member crew clad in long-sleeved blue shirts and slacks sprayed emulsion on the roof of the Park Oaks elementary campus in Thousand Oaks.

“There’s a lot of schools in Conejo that need roofs real bad that aren’t getting them because of the bond,” said Jim Gilday, a roofing consultant overseeing the job.

The district, which twice failed to win approval for a $97-million bond measure, is doing about $1 million of the $2-million roof projects in its maintenance backlog this summer.

Ventura Unified and seven other school districts in western Ventura County persuaded voters to pass school bonds in the past two years, supplying schools with the money needed for re-roofing, rewiring buildings and re-slurrying parking lots.

Also, Ventura will start preliminary construction on an east end elementary school. The bond money has also bought new portable classrooms to continue reducing class sizes to 20 or fewer students.

“It’s going crazy,” Gutierrez said of all the work occurring this summer because of passage of an $81-million bond measure a year ago. “It’s really crazy but it’s well worth it for the kids.”

The Pleasant Valley School District, which passed a $49-million bond measure last year on its fifth try, is also experiencing one of its busiest summers of the decade.

Larry Merry, the district’s facilities director, said he is advertising bids Sunday for projects such as improved playground equipment, lunch shelters and parking lots for two schools.

In Moorpark, where voters twice rejected a $16-million school bond, the district had to forgo work on locker rooms and the library at Chaparral Middle School, creation of a basketball court at Flory School and construction of a music and science building at Moorpark High School.

Instead, district officials plan to spend what money they have on two main projects: re-roofing Peach Hill School and bringing portable classrooms onto the new Walnut Canyon School, Mesa Verde Middle School and Moorpark High School.

The district may consider pursuing another school bond next year, said Frank DePasquale, an assistant superintendent.

The board, however, has not acted on the matter, he said.

In the meantime, Ventura Unified is spending about $4.8 million to purchase and set up 40 portable classrooms with the goal of reducing class sizes for all kindergarten to third-grade classes by the end of next school year.

It is also spending $1.2 million for classroom renovations, $500,000 for asphalt improvement and $1.5 million for lighting.

In the unincorporated El Rio schools, the school district is doing more this summer than it has ever done in the district’s history, facility director Salvador Godoy said.

The passage of the district’s $20-million bond has allowed officials to use $2.1 million for renovations this summer.

Yet, El Rio and other school officials say they have also obtained money for improvements from the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

“We’ve been pretty cautious and not just spending money for improvements, but trying to match funds with state funds or grants to get more bang for our bucks,” Godoy said.