Teamwork on Schools Pays Off in Ventura

VENTURA — On a 20-acre site in east Ventura, architects are conducting a soil study for a proposed $7.5-million elementary school expected to open in the fall of 1998.

The project--representing the first hint of possible campus construction in Ventura since Portola School was built in 1978--is one of at least four schools a panel on school crowding has recommended be built by 2010.

The district has about $5 million available from developers’ fees and may come up with the other $2.5 million through borrowing or a bond measure, said Joseph Richards, the district’s assistant superintendent of business services.

On Friday, officials held a press conference to discuss how cooperative efforts between the city of Ventura and Ventura Unified School District brought together educators, city officials, developers and parents, who made dealing with Ventura schools a priority.

“I thought in no way could the city go a separate way and the schools go another way,” said Mayor Jack Tingstrom, communicating via speakerphone from Sacramento during the press conference. “If it’s going to be solved, we have to do it together.”

In a cooperative effort, Tingstrom and schools Supt. Joseph Spirito about five months ago formed a 19-member panel, charged with coming up with a plan to solve a growing school-crowding problem and make suggestions for financing school construction and renovations. The committee recently completed a list of recommendations, which will be presented during a meeting Monday between the City Council and school trustees.

The school report was considered important enough for the city to delay making any decisions on such issues as Ventura’s population caps and the distribution of developers’ permits until the report’s conclusions.

Heartened by the passage of Oxnard Union High School’s $57-million bond measure in November, Spirito has announced the district will begin looking seriously into whether to seek a bond measure to finance Ventura school construction. If the school district pursues a bond measure, city officials have promised to cooperate to get it passed.

In Ventura, the city would like to pursue a library bond, but Tingstrom said Friday he wants school and library bonds on separate ballots, increasing a school bond’s chances for passage.

“I would like to see the [school bond] by itself. Put it on the ballot with nothing else on it. . . . The whole team would push to pass it,” Tingstrom said. “I’ll be honest with you. I think this is so important, we’re asking for so much that I don’t think we need anything else on the ballot with it.”

Board President Velma Lomax added, however, that she does not want the idea of a large bond measure to “give rise to panic” among residents, saying the district has still not decided concretely on whether to pursue a bond, and if so whether the plan might be for a series of bonds over a period of years.

The $120-million plan for school buildings and construction could come from developers’ fees, selling surplus properties and loans as well as a bond measure, district officials said.

On Jan. 21, trustees plan to hold a study session to discuss the alternatives for financing the school construction and renovations.

In addition to soil sampling being conducted for a possible new school east of Petit Avenue on Darling Road in east Ventura, the district is conducting soil samples on the closed Washington school in the midtown area. If soil tests there show adequate foundation support, that school could be reopened.

If Washington school is reopened, students from Pierpont and Lincoln elementary schools could be transferred. The report from the Ventura-based Earth Systems Environmental firm, due for release next week, may help determine whether the school is suitable to serve as a site combining the two smaller elementary schools.

The report should “determine what has caused the sediment problem at that campus and what the possible solutions to address the issue are,” said Jorge Gutierrez, the school’s director of facilities and maintenance.