School District Battle Ends Quietly as Board Approves Boundaries

The Capistrano Unified School District board Monday quickly approved the attendance boundary changes suggested by Supt. James A. Fleming, ending six months of contention in less than five minutes.

Following Fleming’s short presentation, trustees said they will reassess the issue in two years and voted 7 to 0 to uphold his recommendations.

Boundaries were redrawn in an effort to fill four new schools scheduled to open this fall to ease districtwide overcrowding.

Kinoshita Elementary School will open in San Juan Capistrano with 665 students, almost 500 of whom will be switched from San Juan Elementary School, halving its enrollment. Another 150 students from Del Obispo Elementary School in San Juan Capistrano will move to Kinoshita.

That change resolved what had been the most controversial of the redrawn boundaries.

None of the San Juan Elementary students will attend Del Obispo, a coup for Del Obispo parents who said they feared mixing their students in a classroom with those who have lower test scores because they are still learning English.

After such comments, some San Juan Elementary parents accused Del Obispo parents of being racists who wanted to segregate Latino students in one school.

San Juan Elementary is 98% Latino, while the majority of Del Obispo students are white.

Another major new campus, Don Juan Avila Elementary and Middle Schools, will open on a single Aliso Viejo site with 1,450 students.

Most of the elementary school’s students will come from Oak Grove Elementary School in Aliso Viejo, the district’s most crowded elementary campus.

Hundreds of students at Aliso Viejo Middle School will be moved to Don Juan Avila Middle, with hundreds of students from overcrowded Niguel Hills Middle School taking their place at Aliso Viejo Middle.

Tijeras Creek Elementary School in Rancho Santa Margarita will house 671 students. Most of its new population are students who live in Coto de Caza north of San Miguel Road and attend Wagon Wheel Elementary School.

If siblings are attending the same school, they will be allowed to remain there, the board decided.

Many parents had protested changes, saying they happen too often, rip students away from their friends and derail long-term financial and emotional commitment at the present school. Some parents said the switch would affect students’ academic performance.

Fleming said changes will offer relief to the district’s most crowded campuses. Wagon Wheel, bursting with 1,136 students just two years after it opened in 1997, will drop to a population of 791.

Oak Grove will drop from 1,240 to 947 students.

San Juan Elementary’s student population will decrease from 1,058 to 564.

Niguel Hills Middle School, the district’s most crowded middle school, will drop from 1,722 to 1,442 students.

After all the months of quarreling, most of the audience had left the boardroom by the time the issue came up late in the meeting.