CAPE school countdown
By Daniel Wolowicz camarillo@theacorn.com

BILL SPARKES/Acorn Newspapers FINISHING TOUCHES- Teachers Judith Laurentowski, left, and Kelsey Scheimer work on their to-do lists as they ready their classrooms for opening day. Students for the Camarillo Academy of Progressive Education will arrive on Sept. 5.

Tucked behind First Lutheran Church on Arneill Road, a construction crew worked earlier this week to repave and repaint a patch of weathered blacktop cracked by time and upended by the roots of surrounding pine trees. Once smoothed and repainted, the blacktop surface will feature a basketball court.

The work is part of a number of upgrades a group of parents teachers are making to a collection of 30-year-old classrooms on church property in preparation for the first day of school at the Camarillo Academy for Progressive Education.

Better known as CAPE, the newly formed charter school is the creation of a group of parents and teachers from Los Senderos Open School- one of two campuses closed last year by the Pleasant Valley School District.

The closures were made to free up $1.5 million, which district officials said would be used to raise teachers' salaries and improve their benefits.

The kindergarten-through-eighth-grade school will begin classes Sept. 5, less than three months after Oxnard Union High School District granted its charter.

Janet Kanongata'a, CAPE's principal and superintendent, said the school would have never been possible in such a short period of time without the collaboration between teachers and parents.

Kanongata'a said her staff of 15 teachers, most of whom followed her from Los Senderos, worked without pay over the summer to prepare their classrooms for the more than 330 students expected to start classes in the coming weeks.

"It is a lot of really, really back-breaking work," she said.

Kanongata'a, an educator for nearly 35 years, said the long hours during her summer vacation have been well worth it. "I would rather be here than anywhere else in the world. It's that

Chris Parker, president of the school's board of directors and Doreen Learned, CAPE director of operations, are parents of children who will attend the small campus.

They have set aside their summer plans to make the school possible.

"There are dozens of parents that this has become their full-time jobs, and there are a hundred families that have dedicated a hundred hours or more to the process," Parker said.

Parker said big-ticket improvements to the campus include three new portable classrooms, each with two classrooms, and improvements to the campus' infrastructure, which includes a complete overhaul to upgrade the school's computer network.

Parent involvement, including the donation of time and material, were critical to the school's success, he said.

"There won't be a single parent who walks onto this campus on Sept. 5 and is surprised about what they see," Parker said of parents who spent their weekends on the campus over the past six weeks.

"They'll have helped paint the walls. They'll have helped put in the carpet. They'll have helped move furniture." Parker said, however, that CAPE will occupy the small campus only for this year.

Because state law requires public school districts to provide classroom facilities for a charter school within their district, CAPE and Pleasant Valley district officials have been in talks to decide where the charter school will find a permanent home.

Charter schools, unlike traditional public schools, are independently run and do not receive money from the state for their facilities.

Regardless, CAPE organizers say they will be glad to leave the church's facility better than the way they found it.

Parker said he hopes the classrooms at whichever facility CAPE ends up at won't require the amount of work the current campus needed.

Kanongata'a said she anticipates CAPE's enrollment will reach about 450 students, although she wouldn't say when the school might hit that target number.

If CAPE does attract that many students- most of whom would be local- district officials admit it would impact the budget.

In May, Jan Maez, assistant superintendent, told the Pleasant Valley school board that if 500 students and 23 teachers leave Pleasant Valley for a charter school, the district could lose as much as $750,000 a year.