The Name’s the Same for Oxnard District

For the six high schools in the Oxnard Plain, the beet goes on.

Christened nearly a century ago in honor of the Oxnards, a local family of sugar beet merchants, Oxnard Union High School District’s name will remain intact.

At least for now.

A disputed proposal to change it to the more melodious Pacific View Union High School District was shot down Wednesday at a school board meeting.

To alter any school district’s name in California requires a two-thirds show of support by a board. In Oxnard’s case, that meant four of the five board members had to sign a petition to put the plan on the agenda before a vote could be taken.

Going into the meeting, supporters of the change thought they had those four votes.

But to the surprise of many people, trustee Robert Valles changed his mind and decided against it.

Valles said he originally agreed with board members Nancy Koch, Jean Daily-Underwood and Steve Stocks, who said the district’s given name was confusing.

District officials, for example, get mail intended for people at the Oxnard School District, Valles and others said. And vice versa.

*

At first, Valles said, he believed that parents with children who attend Adolfo Camarillo, Hueneme and Rio Mesa high schools would feel more connected to a district with an inclusive name.

“Pacific View had a nice ring to it,” Valles said Thursday.

But Valles was swamped with telephone calls and letters from residents, even Camarillo residents, vehemently opposed to the idea. Then he discovered that only three of 40 board members from nearby elementary school districts he surveyed were proponents of the switch.

Valles, a third-generation Oxnard resident, reconsidered.

For one thing, he said, “The name assumes you have a view. Come on; you look at all of the high schools we have and none of them have windows where you can look out and see the ocean.”

But there was a more serious side to his thinking.

“Oxnard High School District has a respected reputation throughout the state,” Valles said. “We came up with an extended school year, mandatory summer school for students working two years below their grade level, and we have a very low dropout rate.

“We’re looked at as cutting-edge throughout the state, and all of that was going to be eliminated because of the name change,” he said.

Jane Tolmach, a former Oxnard mayor who sat on the school board from 1965 to 1972, was one of several residents who implored trustees to keep the district’s current identity at the meeting Wednesday.

“The change is divisive, meaningless and suggests a ding-a-ling mentality,” Tolmach said Thursday. “It’s such a silly thing to do. There are so many more important things for districts to do.”

Although Valles prevented the change from slipping through this time, Tolmach fears the issue has not been put to rest.

The matter can legally be brought back to the board for consideration if 15 registered voters sign a petition supporting a name change. At that point, only a simple board majority would be needed to give it the final stamp of approval.

“I’m sure they’ll be back,” Tolmach said, referring to Koch, Stocks and Daily-Underwood, none of whom were available for comment Thursday. “They seem really determined. It’s just a matter of time.”

Assistant Supt. Eric Ortega could not say for certain whether the matter will again be brought before the board.

“It may not die,” he said.

Ortega said the change may not be such a bad idea.

“The name issue was not being done just to do it,” he said. “There were reasons for it, and confusion among the schools and the district had a lot to do with it.”

*

Tolmach doesn’t buy the confusion argument.

“Are they saying people in Camarillo are too stupid to know that they are in the Oxnard Union High School District?” she asked. “Why would they then know they were in a new non-area-name district?”