Camarillo Charter School Will Dare to Be Different

All students at this elementary school will be taught both English and Spanish. Each class will be led by one of the best, most experienced teachers in Ventura County, who will be encouraged to use cutting-edge techniques.

Is this public education?

It will be at University Preparation School, a charter school set to open in Camarillo this fall.

The new Cal State Channel Islands will run the school as a kind of public school laboratory. College students going through the university’s teaching credential program will get hands-on experience under the guidance of veteran educators, who will use the program to learn new ways of teaching. Aspiring school administrators will be able to experience firsthand the rigors of the job.

Meanwhile, 500 local youngsters from kindergarten to fifth grade will experience what proponents hope will be one of the county’s most enriching educational environments.

“It’s a wonderful opportunity for the students, and, as importantly, for the teachers,” said Howard Hamilton, superintendent of the Pleasant Valley Elementary School District. “It should raise the level of teaching quality throughout Ventura County.”

As a charter campus, University Preparation School will be funded by the state on a per-student basis. The school will not have to comply with California’s rigid education code, but teachers will be responsible for annual standardized testing.

When it opens in the fall, the school will be housed in what is now El Rancho Structured School in the Pleasant Valley Elementary School District under a five-year agreement.

About 250 students living in the neighborhood around El Rancho, many of whom are learning English, will have the option of attending the charter school. The other half of the enrollees will be recruited from around the county.

For now, the focus is on building a staff.

On Monday, a committee of Ventura County teachers, administrators and university faculty members will interview four finalists for principal.

Then the hunt begins for teachers. The university is seeking tenured teachers in Ventura County and nearby Las Virgenes Unified School District. An ability to teach students from diverse backgrounds and proficiency in a second language will be a plus.

Many of the first students in the university’s teaching credential program--there will be about 140--will have a rare opportunity to work with the county’s “distilled expertise” in teaching, said Barbara Thorpe, chief of academic planning for Cal State Channel Islands.

“It’s a gift,” she said. “It’s an opportunity for our student teachers to have a wonderful experience in a school that will have a number of farsighted and unique aspects to it.”