Oxnard School District officials will be asked this month to sign off on new attendance boundaries, a move prompted by construction of three new schools in the K-8 district. Any changes, however, likely would be put off until the 2009-10 school year.

A boundary committee, which includes parents and school and city officials, proposed that the changes be delayed until the first school year after a 650-student elementary school is built near the Oxnard Airport, which likely will be in 2009.

For about a year, boundary committee members discussed possible changes, trying to create neighborhood schools wherever possible and taking public safety and barriers such as industrial parks and railroad tracks into account.

"Every school in the district is being touched," said boundary committee chairman Ernie Morrison, a retired principal. "It wasn't something that was idly done. A lot of painstaking work went into it."

Committee members took their work seriously, he said, realizing that when "you move a line, you're affecting kids."

The proposed new boundaries would cut out the "leap-frogging" attendance patterns that occur in Oxnard schools now, according to Morrison, and that would mean students spending less time riding buses.

"We were just crowded," he said. "We fit students where we had room."

If a school became overcrowded, the district would move students to a campus that had space. But sometimes the closest one with space would be two or three campuses away.

Bond measure passed

"Kids were waving at each other, passing in buses," Morrison said.

A $64 million bond measure passed in November 2006 allowed the district to replace portable classrooms with permanent buildings on two campuses and build the new school, to be named Juan Soria.

While the new buildings will create more space for students, plans also call for the district to abandon its multitrack calendar. In the multitrack system, groups of students have staggered vacation schedules, allowing the district to teach four groups over the course of a year using only three sets of classrooms.

Single-track priority

But students and teachers lose days of quality instruction time every time they have to pack up or move into a new classroom, district officials have said.

Moving all of the district's schools to a single-track schedule is a top priority, said Assistant Superintendent Jim Moranville. To achieve that, the district has to do a rebalancing act.

Only one school — Lemonwood, which is in an isolated area — will remain relatively untouched by the boundary changes.

The committee came up with eight scenarios, narrowed that list to three and asked for input from the district staff, school employees and Oxnard residents.

While parents liked the neighborhood school concept, they had safety concerns about their students walking to school.

Some also spoke out against a proposal to create a K-3 school and a 4-6 campus, saying they didn't want siblings split up.

Transportation issues

The committee revised its plans before making a recommendation to the school board last month, axing the K-3, 4-6 proposal. Transportation issues also have to be sorted out, and city officials are expected to assess the need for new crossing guards and other safety improvements.

Some also took issue with the district's gifted-student program being moved from Rose Avenue School to Sierra Linda — something that didn't change in the committee's final recommendation. The move would displace fewer students, according to the district.

"The committee did a fantastic job," Moranville said. Moving students among schools is a sensitive issue, "and the committee listened to the community" and developed an option it felt best fit the district's needs, he said.

For more information about the recommendations and maps, visit 204.147.18.75/education/components/scrapbook/default.php?sectiondetailid=1723&;sc_id=1186012800.