High school board vents frustration
By Michelle Knight knight@theacorn.com

Facing skyrocketing construction costs and overcrowded schools, Oxnard Union High School District board members voiced frustration at their last meeting.

"Just as a point of clarification, because I'm getting very frustrated," board President Socorro Lopez Hanson said. "Because no matter what we say here, there are some out in the community that continue to either, at the very best, misrepresent the truth or, in the worst possible case, out-and-out not tell the truth."

"I think this board should seriously start thinking if we're going to build or not," Bob Valles said. "I think we're burning a lot of resources from our staff just staying idle."

And board member Irene Pinkard said, "If we're going to do it we need to do it quite soon because our dollar value will be quite less."

The comments followed a report by Lou Cunningham, the district's director of facilities and safety. Cunningham told the board at the Oct. 18 meeting that constructing a new full-sized school could cost as much as $90 million, over twice the price tag for Pacifica High School, built in Oxnard five years ago for $42 million.

Cunningham said it probably will take five to six years to build a new school but money and nearly two years could be saved if the district used construction plans from one of its schools.

A magnet school would be less expensive and take less time to build, he said. Cunningham said the

Camarillo school project could have been eight months to a year into the process if it hadn't been halted. The district owns property near the intersection of Lewis and Las Posas roads in Somis, and the board has maintained that it intends to build a school there.

Cunningham said the school could have been finished by 2008-10.

"We'd be well into construction right now," Cunningham said, adding that the push to unify all Camarillo students in a single district also has stopped progress on building a school in Oxnard.

"We're further ahead on the Camarillo project today than we are on an Oxnard project, so we stopped it everywhere," Cunningham said.

Lopez Hanson said the board is still considering building a school on the property. With the passage of Assembly Bill 780 in 2004 and the inclusion of Somis students in the unification effort, the property owned by the Oxnard high school district would go with the new district if formed, she said. She added that the board made a promise not to make one community pay for building a school in another.

"I just want to make it really clear that we have not at any point in time . . . taken formal action to

not construct . . . in Camarillo, that it is still, at this point in time, part of the discussion," she said.

Valles said later that he's frustrated with the board's lack of action in building a school and that a window of opportunity for state money for new school construction could be closing if action is not taken soon.

The board may form a committee to decide the next step.