Plan Advances for Joint Use of Local Campus

Plans to build a school in Thousand Oaks for combined use by Moorpark College and the Conejo Valley Unified School District are moving ahead, officials said Tuesday.

“We’ve been planning this for quite a while,” said college President Eva Conrad. “We finally think it’s going to happen.”

The 30,000-square-foot satellite campus would be built on up to six acres next to the Janss Road headquarters of the Conejo Valley school district. On weekdays, 10 of 13 classrooms would be used for Conejo Valley High, the district’s continuation school. The full campus would be used for college courses after 6 p.m. and on Saturdays.

Ventura County Community College District trustees last week approved a preliminary agreement on how the proposed $12-million complex would be operated by the districts over the next 30 years. Conejo Valley Unified board members are scheduled to hold the first of two discussions on the agreement during their Tuesday meeting, with a final vote expected in May.

“There were several points where we thought we may have hit a dead end, but we didn’t give up,” said Robert Fraisse, superintendent of the 22,000-student Conejo Valley district. “We kept at it. We had to blend many interests.”

Architects are devising a master plan with initial construction of 13 classrooms of 40 seats each -- three for exclusive college use -- a computer lab, a science lab, an art classroom, a library, a multipurpose room and office space. There would also be classrooms for high school special education students, vocational education, a physical education activity room and a television-media studio.

The master plan would allow the center to be expanded if there is sufficient demand and money available. Initially, Fraisse expects the high school classrooms to hold an average of 200 students. Conrad said the college, which may begin classes as early as 7 a.m. for working adults, would likely have 120 to 200 students in the daytime and 500 students on weeknights.

Budget cutbacks forced Moorpark College to stop holding evening classes at Westlake High School about four years ago and at Newbury Park High in 2002, so returning to Thousand Oaks with regular courses should be welcomed by the community, officials said.

Because most of Moorpark College’s 15,000 students live in Thousand Oaks and the Conejo Valley, the learning center would be convenient for those taking the general education courses to be offered, Conrad said.

Fraise said the school and college districts intended to invite staff members from the city’s Planning Department and the Conejo Recreation and Park District to help refine the master plan for the community learning center, for which construction could begin as early as this fall. The first classes would start in September 2005.

Along with contributing land valued at about $3 million, Conejo Unified would spend $1.25 million from a 1998 bond, Measure R, and $875,000 in state facility bond money on the project. Moorpark College, which would oversee the center’s construction, would contribute $7 million from the college district’s portion of $356 million in Measure S construction bonds.