CAPE expected to occupy Valle Lindo
By Michelle Knight knight@theacorn.com

IRIS SMOOT/Acorn Newspapers BIG MOVE- The Camarillo Academy of Progressive Education, a charter school that opened earlier this school year, is expected to move into Valle Lindo School, above, on Aileen Street in the fall. The campus is home to two preschool programs and Ventura County's special education offices, all three of which would have to be relocated to make room for CAPE. Currently, the charter school has established temporary classrooms at First Lutheran Church of Camarillo on Arneill Road.

The law requires the Pleasant Valley School District to make a vacant campus available to the charter school Camarillo Academy of Progressive Education (CAPE), a lawyer for the school district said recently.

"You are obligated . . . to provide facilities," said PVSD attorney Sukhi Sandhu at the April 17 school board meeting.

School districts must be willing to lease vacant facilities to a charter school when 80 or more of the school's students come from the traditional school district.

A large majority of the approximately 360 students who attend CAPE come from PVSD, officials from both school districts said.

The charter school opened last fall on a Camarillo church's property after the Oxnard Union High School District approved its charter. CAPE founders- parents unhappy with the district for closing Los Senderos Open School in June- sought approval from the high school district after the Pleasant Valley school board turned them down.

Pleasant Valley and Oxnard have been at odds over a lengthy battle to make the kindergartenthrough-eighth-grade Pleasant Valley into a K-12 school district.

Pleasant Valley trustee Patty Lerner said being legally compelled to lease facilities to CAPE is not a personal issue.

"I'm not going to go there; I think it's immaterial," Lerner said. "It's the law. It's our kids, so that's what we have to do."

Two Pleasant Valley campuses are available to the charter school: Valle Lindo on the city's west side and the former Los Primeros Structured School site in the downtown area.

Negotiations have centered on the district leasing Valle Lindo to CAPE at just over $3 per square foot. That campus is now home to the county's special education offices and two preschool programs.

CAPE wants to occupy the campus before the start of the 2008-09 school year.

"At this point the lawyers are working it out, said Doreen Learned, the charter school's director of operations.

The charter school is projecting an enrollment of 420 students this fall, Learned said. PVSD enrollment, on the other hand, has been in decline. The district had about 6,500 students this year, down from 6,900 in 2006-07, a district official said.