Push to Break Away From Oxnard District Builds Steam

A decade-old movement in Camarillo to secede from the Oxnard Union High School District has found new momentum, as volunteers attempt to gather the 12,000 signatures needed to place the issue on the ballot.

Proponents want to create a new unified school district that would merge award-winning Adolfo Camarillo High School with the 14 elementary and middle schools in Camarillo’s Pleasant Valley School District. The change also would mean moving about 600 Camarillo teenagers out of Rio Mesa High School in northeast Oxnard.

The signature drive began about six months ago, fueled in part by Camarillo’s lack of identity with Oxnard and a desire for more local control, said Roger Lund, a local attorney who is helping organize the effort.

In fact, the two cities are quite different: Camarillo is a largely white commuter suburb, while Oxnard is mostly made up of working-class Latinos.

The Oxnard Union High School District was formed 100 years ago, when it made sense for the two small farm towns to combine their high schools. But that’s no longer the case, Lund said. Oxnard has about 182,000 residents and Camarillo has about 60,000.

“The fact we have to send anybody out of town to go to high school is ridiculous, in my opinion, for a city of this size,” said Lund, who said about 6,000 signatures have been collected so far. “Why do we have money leaving town and kids leaving town when we have perfectly capable resources here?”

But critics are worried about the financial implications of such a move because Camarillo residents are still paying off a multimillion-dollar bond that funded the construction of two new high schools in Oxnard.

They also question the timing. Oxnard district officials recently began studying the possibility of building a second high school in Camarillo, a chief goal for many parents there.

“We’ve been on this team for years, and it’s finally our turn at bat. It seems like a stupid time to leave the team,” said Sandy Rao, who has a daughter at Rio Mesa High and two children in Pleasant Valley schools. “If you simplify it, the idea sounds great. But there are a lot of issues involved.”

The secession process is known by school officials as unification, and it has been a topic of discussion in Camarillo for years. The first study of the issue was commissioned by the Pleasant Valley district in 1992; it was updated in 1998. Two Pleasant Valley board members were elected that year after running on a unification platform, but a signature drive never began.

Another update of the study is to be presented to the school board in December, said Howard Hamilton, superintendent of the elementary district.

Hamilton said Pleasant Valley board members have agreed to accept the concept of unification, but have not gone so far as to promote the plan. Oxnard’s school board has taken a neutral position. “Basically, it’s in the hands of the voters,” Hamilton said.

Before the question gets to the ballot in a special election, however, it must pass the muster of state education officials.

The signatures of 25% of registered voters in the Pleasant Valley district -- or 12,000 people -- are needed before an application can be sent directly to the state Board of Education for review. If supporters only get 10% of registered voters to sign, the proposal goes to a Ventura County committee, which could either send it on to the state or stop the proposal there.

A number of obstacles must be overcome for Pleasant Valley to become a unified district.

Shifting control of Camarillo High to the elementary district would significantly change the ethnic mix of the Oxnard Union High School District, the 1998 study found, and the new district would not have enough room to house the 3,000 students that would be added.

That could force the Pleasant Valley district to either move to year-round school programs or to try to pass a bond to build another school.

According to the report, unification would cause the white student population in the Oxnard district to drop from 28.4% to 16.1%. Conversely, the percentage of Latino students would jump from 58% to 69%.

While Rao said the proposal “looks like white flight,” she doesn’t believe that’s the secession group’s motive.

Indeed, those supporting unification say they simply want to be able to connect the elementary curriculum with what’s being taught in the high schools. Camarillo High is the Oxnard district’s best-performing high school and has won a Blue Ribbon award, one of the federal Education Department’s highest honors. But test scores in the district are lower than in districts around the state with similar demographics.

Proponents of the split say they also want more of a say in how their tax and bond dollars are spent. Right now, only one of five Oxnard board members is from Camarillo.

Camarillo parents grumbled when Oxnard opened the sprawling, $55-million Pacifica High last year -- down the street from a new $33-million Oxnard High -- leaving few school bond dollars to repair the crumbling Camarillo campus.

They deny that race has ever been an issue.

“The fact is, unified districts do a better job of delivering services,” Lund said. “That alone is reason to unify.”

Still, questions remain about how the Pleasant Valley district could afford the increased costs associated with high school education without raising taxes, said county Supt. of Schools Charles Weis.

Oxnard Union High School District Trustee Robert Valles said supporters of the unification movement are applying their energies in the wrong direction. The board has been responsive to Camarillo’s concerns, he said, recently approving $13 million to remodel 46-year-old Camarillo High.

“I don’t think they have all the facts -- the pros and the cons,” Valles said. “I would say it would be a poor mistake to get out of the district.”