New School Will Balance Academics With Athletics

Nearly 400 teachers and coaches have applied for positions at Oaks Christian High in Westlake Village, which opens in September.

“It’s unbelievable,” Headmaster Jeff Woodcock said. “We haven’t even advertised.”

Fueling interest is the unprecedented collection of athletic facilities rising from an 18-acre dirt field adjacent to the Ventura Freeway between Lindero Canyon Road and Westlake Boulevard.

By next fall there will be a 2,000-seat lighted football stadium, an all-weather nine-lane Atlas track, a 1,200-seat gymnasium, a baseball field, a softball field and a 50-meter swimming pool.

There will be a 2,300-square-foot weight room, boys’ and girls’ locker rooms, a soccer practice field and outside basketball courts.

The site resembles an athletic academy under construction.

It’s no wonder that athletics is mentioned prominently in the school’s mission statement. Students will be implored to dedicate themselves to the “pursuit of academic excellence, athletic distinction and Christian values.”

Don’t anyone get the wrong impression about Oaks Christian. The coed nondenominational school intends to offer a comprehensive college preparatory curriculum. There’s a state-of-the-art academic complex being built from offices that once housed a defense contractor, complete with classrooms wired for videoconferencing and Internet access, and facilities for band, choir and drama.

But it’s refreshing to see a school openly embrace the importance of sports in the overall development of teenagers.

“Athletics contributes to a [positive] atmosphere on campus,” said Woodcock, who spent nine years in the 1980s as superintendent for Sun Valley Village Christian.

It usually takes years for a private high school to fund and build the kind of athletic facilities going up at Oaks Christian, but a $30 million stock gift from the Price Family Foundation is allowing the school to open on full throttle.

Co-founders David and Dallas Price are sports enthusiasts. David Price built American Golf Corp. into the largest golf operations company in the world. Dallas Price is a philanthropist and business entrepreneur who has competed in six marathons.

The school hopes to enroll about 200 students in the first year, solely ninth and 10th graders. Tuition will be $11,000 per year, less than Harvard-Westlake and Buckley, but more than Chaminade, Crespi and Notre Dame. The school has set aside $200,000 for financial aid in the first year. Eventually, the campus will be able to hold an enrollment of 1,200.

Not even Santa Margarita in Orange County, which opened in 1987 with 250 ninth graders and has become an athletic powerhouse, can match the facilities at Oaks Christian.

Still to be determined are Oaks Christian’s mascot and what Southern Section league the school will join. The Frontier League would seem the best fit.

More than 600 people visited the campus last weekend for open house. The concrete foundation for football bleachers has gone up on a hill overlooking the campus. The gym walls are up, and in the basement of the gym, locker rooms and offices are taking shape.

No one knows which neighboring schools might suffer in the competition for students. Oaks Christian is so close to Westlake High you can see the lights from Westlake’s football stadium.

Families as far away as Ojai have inquired about the new school. Ventura, Camarillo, Malibu, Pacific Palisades, Simi Valley, Moorpark, the West Valley and the Conejo Valley could provide students to the new campus.

The first application submitted by a student arrived last week. Applicants must take an entrance exam and undergo an interview before being accepted. The school will begin approving students to enroll by the middle of January.

The most-asked question among parents interested in athletics is who will be the coaches?

The first coach expected to be hired will be for football.

Bill Redell, a Westlake Village resident and highly successful football coach at St. Francis, is the type of big name the school could end up hiring.

If Redell goes to Oaks Christian, that could set off a chain reaction of coaches and athletes switching schools. Would Jim Bonds, a former St. Francis assistant, leave Alemany to replace Redell? Would players at Alemany scatter to other schools? That’s only the beginning of possible scenarios.

Wait until the other coaching choices are announced. The naming of a top swimming coach, combined with the school’s facilities, could make Oaks Christian an appealing destination for elite swimmers.

In basketball, all it takes is one or two top players to enroll and suddenly the program is competing for a championship. Alemany proved that last season.

The school plans to offer football, girls’ volleyball, tennis, basketball, soccer, baseball, softball, swimming, track and field and golf in the first year of nonvarsity competition.

No one knows how successful Oaks Christian could become, but it opens with quality coaches, teachers and facilities.

That’s a good start for any new school.

Eric Sondheimer’s local column appears Wednesday and Sunday. He can be reached at (818) 772-3422 or eric.sondheimer@latimes.com