School Board OKs Boundary Changes

After a two-year struggle to achieve ethnic diversity, the school board has unanimously approved a plan that will alter the attendance boundaries for students living in the downtown area.

Following a three-hour discussion Tuesday night, the Moorpark Unified School District board decided that about 275 students who attend Peach Hill and Flory elementary and Mesa Verde Middle schools will go to new schools next year.

The mostly Latino students will transfer to Mountain Meadows and Arroyo West elementary schools and Chaparral Middle School.

At the elementary level, 59.4% of the district’s students are white and 32.4% are Latino. In the middle schools, 63% of the students are white and 28.6% are Latino.

Although the plan achieves the diversity goal, which is defined as each school being within 8% of the district’s overall ethnic makeup, it will create crowding at Arroyo West Elementary School.

Currently, 768 students attend Arroyo West, which has a capacity for 810 students. With the new boundaries, 873 students will attend the school during the 1999-2000 academic year.

“There’s no decision that will make everyone happy,” board President David Pollock said. “I’m not under the delusion that we will solve all the problems.”

Most of the roughly 30 parents still in the audience when the board made its decision near midnight approved of the new plan. Many applauded after board members cast their votes.

Others, however, were disappointed that the board did not present information to the public on boundary-change options that included other communities besides those in the downtown area.

The affected neighborhood is east of Moorpark Avenue, west of Spring Road, north of 2nd Street and south of the railroad tracks near High Street.