School board sticks by closure decision
Declining student enrollment forces restructuring
By Michelle Knight knight@theacorn.com

IN SUPPORT- El Descanso Elementary School parents Jeanette Garcia, left, and Tami Ellis, right, and Garcia's 6-year-old daughter, Nicole, march in front of City Hall on Monday with 100 teachers from the Pleasant Valley School District to back the board's decision to close schools and give teachers a pay raise.

The Pleasant Valley School Board will move forward and close a campus to move and restructure programs at the end of the school year in an effort to free up $1.5 million to give teachers a pay raise.

The board took no action in a special meeting on Monday but reaffirmed its decision in late March to close Los Senderos Open School and the campus of Los Primeros Structured School- both kindergarten-through-eighth-grade programs- and move the now renamed Los Primeros Magnet program to the Los Senderos site and open enrollment to neighborhood children. Los Senderos students could attend Rancho Rosal Elementary, which will become an open magnet school.

Board President Ron Speakman asked the board in April to reconsider the decision. But Trustees Sandra Berg and Patty Lerner said on Monday they would stick by their earlier vote.

Suzanne Kitchens, who cast the lone dissenting vote at the March 22 meeting, said she too would stay her course.

"Once we went off topic, once we confused our staff, our parents, our community, it was not okay with me," she said. "I'm truly embarrassed as I sit up here that we've mucked this up."

The school board was scheduled to meet again last night, but the agenda did not include discussion regarding school closures.

Earlier this year, the board agreed to give teachers an 8 percent raise, effective from February to June. The district anticipates receiving a 4 percent increase from the state later this year, and plans to use the extra funds to pay for the salary increase for teachers and others.

The board voted in April to give nearly 250 district administrators and other nonunion employees a 4 percent raise but to lay off 24 support employees from two schools.

The district and teachers union are expected to be in contract negotiations for 2007-08 later this month.

But Assistant Superintendent Jan Maez told the board the pay improvement is likely to be short-lived when other school districts also bump up their teachers' salaries.

"We may not fall way back to the bottom, but we'll certainly lose ground," she said.

If a charter school opens in Camarillo this year as disgruntled Los Senderos parents have planned, it could be another threat to the district's general fund.

Maez said if 500 students and 23 teachers leave Pleasant Valley for a charter school, the district could lose as much as $750,000 a year.

District staff also told the board that enrollment projections are continuing to decline.

They expect 6,857 students to attend district schools in the fall, down from 6,993 students from the 2006-07 school year.