SCHOOL BOUNDARIES TO BE ALTERED; MOORPARK DISTRICT CONSIDERING FOUR OPTIONS.

Byline: Gloria Gonzales Daily News Staff Writer

Spurred by a growing student population and a new elementary school, school board trustees are redrawing attendance boundaries for neighborhoods feeding into the city's elementary and middle schools.

And the practical demands of adding a new school will allow trustees to meet a district goal of balancing each school's population according to size and ethnicity, said trustee David Pollock.

``One of the key driving issues in redrawing the boundaries is ensuring that each school represents all aspects of our community, that each school's population reflects the community,'' Pollock said. ``As it is now, we have about a square-mile area downtown that's predominantly Hispanic, and that area feeds into Peach Hill and Flory School; consequently, the two schools have a disproportionately large Hispanic population, while Mountain Meadows school population is disproportionately white.''

No law requires the district to balance school populations according to ethnicity, although the law prohibits segregating schools by ethnicity, Pollock said.

``The law prohibits us from purposely segregating, but it doesn't compel us to desegregate,'' Pollock said. ``But that's not why we're doing this. We truly believe that (ethnic balance) has educational value and that it's the right thing to do.''

The attendance boundary now bisects the city along a north-south line. Students on the western side attend Mountain Meadows for kindergarten through second grade, Arroyo West for third through fifth grades and Chaparral Middle School for sixth, seventh and eighth grades.

All students living in the city's eastern half attend Flory Elementary for fourth and fifth grades and Mesa Verde Middle School for sixth through eighth. For kindergarten through third grade, students in the northeast quadrant attend Campus Canyon, while those in the southeast quadrant go to Peach Hill School.

After middle school, students from both sides of the city attend Moorpark High School.

Latinos living in the southeastern area of the city are now concentrated at Peach Hill and Flory, and across the boundary line there are large concentrations of whites at Meadows and Arroyo West.

At Peach Hill, 46 percent of the 700 students are Latino, and so are 35 percent of the 628 students at Flory Elementary. On the west side, 72 percent of the 728 students at Mountain Meadows are white, and so are 72 percent of the 747 students at Arroyo West.

``We want to try to balance both the overall numbers and ensure that the community is represented,'' Pollock said. ``Keep in mind that in this community, all the students end up at the same high school. We don't want to have high school freshmen coming in and having their first experience of of people in the community who are different. . . . Through the grade levels, we want students to develop understanding of those who may live - and perhaps think - differently than they do.''

The board has drawn up four preliminary boundary options shown in maps that are available at the district offices, along with showing current boundaries. Balance is proposed in each option by moving part of the Mountain Meadows attendance zone into other areas, extending the western side into the predominantly Latino downtown neighborhoods or by doing both.

``It's important to remember that these are simply initial options, and we expect to see a number of different variations over the next few months, and what we are likely to come up with is some kind of hybrid,'' Pollock said.

In addition to redrawing boundaries, the attendance shift will give Moorpark parents and students a chance to weigh in on two other issues: the kinds of special programs they would like to see at the new Walnut Canyon Elementary School, and how they would like the grades grouped at the elementary level.

Students now switch schools after second grade on the east side and after third grade on the west side. Two of the options would let students at Walnut Canyon stay in the same school through fifth grade. The new school is under construction on the site of the old high school, northwest of City Hall, and will open with a capacity for 580 students and will open next autumn.

SCHOOL BOUNDARY OPTIONS

OPTION A: Walnut Canyon is added as a K-2 school in the northwest quadrant, taking some students from Mountain Meadows school and students added by the new Carlsberg development. The arroyo is the dividing line in this option, with all students north of the arroyo attending Walnut Canyon. The new school would also draw students from a southeast strip of the Peach Hill area formerly served by Peach Hill's K-3 school.

Once in higher elementary grades, the attendance boundaries would remain the same. K-3 and K-2 schools would continue to feed into Arroyo West on the west side of town for grades 3-5, and into Flory Elementary for grades 4-5. Those grades in turn would continue to feed into Chaparral Middle School on the west and Mesa Verde Middle School on the east.

OPTION B: Walnut Canyon would be a K-5 school that would draw from only the western half of the Buttercreek tract and the western half of town north of the arroyo. The new school would also draw from the southeasternmost section of the Peach Hill neighborhood, formerly served by Peach Hill School. Le Club Apartments would move from Campus Canyon School to Mountain Meadows School. At grades 4-5, students in the easternmost section of Mountain Meadows neighborhood would move to Flory Elementary for grades 4-5.

At the middle school level, Mesa Verde' domain would push west into Mountain Meadows neighborhood, while Chaparral would take students from the northern section of the predominantly Latino downtown neighborhood.

OPTION C: Walnut Canyon becomes a K-5 school, and Mountain Meadows School becomes a K-2 school. All of the Buttercreek tract moves to Walnut Canyon. All of Mountain Meadows neighborhood north of the arroyo also goes to Walnut Canyon. A sliver of the downtown square would move to Mountain Meadows School. The Carlsberg development is split between Peach Hill and Walnut Canyon. At the middle school level, Chaparral's area would push east to include more of the downtown area.

OPTION D: The fourth option is the most radical departure from the current boundaries and splits the city along the east-west line of the railroad tracks. Students north of the tracks would attend Campus Canyon for grades K-2 and Walnut Canyon for grades 3-5. South of the tracks, the north-south dividing line is the same, with Mountain Meadows for grades K -2 and Arroyo West for grades 3-5 on the west, and Peach Hill for grades K-2 and Flory Elementary for grades 3-5 on the east. Middle schools would not be affected by this option.

CAPTION(S):

Map, Box

MAP: Moorpark school boundaries currently divide the city in half along a north/south line extending from Happy Camp Regional Park to the city's southern limits. Students in the western half of the city attend Mountain Meadows School from grades K-2, Arroyo West School for grades 3-5 and Chaparal Middle School for grades 6-8. Students on the eastern side attend Peach Hill School or Campus Canyon School for grades K-3, Flory Elementary for grades 4-5 and Mesa Verde Middle School for grades 6-8.

Greg Miller / Daily News

BOX: SCHOOL BOUNDARY OPTIONS (see text)