ADULT SCHOOL TRAFFIC SPARKS LOCAL PROTEST : COUNCIL WANTS NIGHT CLASSES MOVED.

Byline: Enrique Rivero Daily News Staff Writer

Shortly after moving into the Waverly Heights neighborhood in April, Shirley Christie grew curious about a line of traffic crawling past her front yard.

Thinking there was a party nearby, Christie and her son followed the cars and the noise for several blocks to the source - the Conejo Valley Adult School Waverly Heights campus.

The Christies were among two dozen area residents who complained to the City Council on Tuesday night about traffic, litter and other problems posed by the adult school. The Christies said they have have gone so far as to barricade two of their three driveway entrances to prevent motorists from using their property as a short cut.

``Ultimately, we'd like to have our yard back, that's basically why we bought over a half-acre and most of it is in the front,'' Christie said Wednesday in an interview. ``We'd like our front yard back.''

District Superintendent Jerry Gross said Wednesday that school officials have met several times with their city counterparts to work out a solution to traffic problems, and that he thought they were close to an agreement to install speed humps along Waverly Heights Drive. The district has closed school gates, changed school schedules and taken other measures in response to earlier complaints, Gross said.

On Tuesday, however, the City Council took Gross by surprise by suggesting that the Conejo Valley Unified School District had been unresponsive and that perhaps the school should be moved.

``Out of the blue, to attack our Board of Education is highly irregular,'' Gross said. ``We're stunned by this behavior.''

For the short term, city officials say, they will try to convince the school district to reduce traffic by setting up a park-and-ride lot with shuttle service to the school and moving night classes to another location, said Mayor Andrew Fox.

``We're looking for the majority of the traffic to be eliminated by the shuttle buses - that's the short-term solution,'' Fox said in an interview Wednesday.

``The long-term solution is, the district has to develop a master plan to provide adult education for the community and it has to be done in an acceptable location,'' he said. ``And that location is not a former elementary school nestled deep in an equestrian neighborhood with no streetlights or sidewalks and windy streets.''

Dave Woodruff, principal of the Waverly Heights campus, said any traffic problems at the campus are not significant. The council is responding in knee-jerk fashion to the complaints of a few ``activist'' residents, he said.

Studies by the city's Traffic Department and the Ventura County Sheriff's Department show that traffic and driving speeds in the neighborhood are at acceptable levels, according to Woodruff.

``There is not a significant problem - the Traffic Department has said this on several occasions, the Sheriff's Department says this and I concur and I have looked at this more than anybody,'' Woodruff said.

Conejo Valley Adult Education each year serves about 9,000 students and offers some 300 classes at 25 locations, including the Waverly Heights campus, Woodruff said.

Though the exact number of students enrolled at that campus could not be determined, Woodruff did say that all 20 classrooms are in constant use during the day, and about 15 are in use Monday through Thursday nights.

Class sizes range from six to 35 students, Woodruff said.