Alternative schools find new homes
El Camino High School to occupy buildings on college campus

The Ventura Unified School District has been working for years to give parents choices in education with El Camino High School and the home schooling program, Homestead School.

More options will be available next fall when El Camino moves to the Ventura College campus and Homestead moves to Blanche Reynolds Elementary in Ventura.

Both campuses offer free enrollment and are open to students who live in Ventura, Los Angeles and Santa Barbara counties.

El Camino High School is in the process of building a new campus on the Ventura College grounds. Once completed, El Camino students will have access to all college facilities- stateoftheart technology, a library, science labs, art studios and support services. The move is expected to take place in the fall of 2007.

El Camino also offers accredited college-prep classes, one-on-one mentoring with a credentialed teacher, independent study in a smallschool setting, the ability to earn high school and college credit concurrently, no tuition fees for college classes, and a flexible setting allowing students to pursue work, internships, community service, athletics and the arts.

Ventura's Homestead School is for home-schooling grades K through 8 families. Experiential learning is stressed at Homestead, with students exploring their own areas of interest. Students are matched up with a credentialed teacher who meets with the family on a regular basis.

Homestead also offers individualized lesson plans, evaluation of each child's progress, free access to all texts, alternative curriculum and other educational resources, and interaction with other students through classes, field trips, assemblies and other activities.

Homestead will be relocating to the same site as Ventura Unified's alternative education program, the Open Classroom at Blanche Reynolds.

For more information on El Camino High School, call (805) 289-7955 or visit www.ventura. k12.ca.us/vusd/elcamino.

For more information on Homestead School, call (805) 289-7900, ext. 1109, or visit www.ventura.k12.ca.us/vusd/ homestead.