SPANISH PAST, GEOGRAPHY REFLECTED IN THE NAMES OF NEW SCHOOLS.

Byline: Mary Schubert Daily News Staff Writer

What's in a name? In the case of Rancho Pico, Rio Norte, Golden Valley and West Ranch, the answer is thousands of students who will attend future high schools and junior highs with those monikers.

The school board on Wednesday is expected to approve those suggestions as the names for its fifth and sixth junior highs and fifth and sixth high schools.

The William S. Hart Union High School District recently held a contest,

publicized on its computer home page, seeking suggestions for names for the schools expected to be built in the next several years. Out of 47 total submissions, a district committee narrowed the field to the four finalists, said Leslie Crunelle, the district's assistant superintendent of educational services.

Two of the contest guidelines were that entries should follow the local tradition of giving Spanish names to junior highs - Arroyo Seco, La Mesa, Placerita and Sierra Vista are the district's four existing sites - and geographical names to its high schools, as is the case with Canyon, Saugus and Valencia high schools.

The district committee also wanted to avoid confusion that would be created by duplicating the names of other schools, Crunelle said. For example, a contestant suggested one campus should be called Mountain View, but an elementary school in the Saugus district already carries that name.

Several people suggested that one of the campuses be called Stevenson Ranch High School, but the committee also rejected that idea since the Newhall district has an elementary school by that name.

Ana Ibarbia, a bilingual specialist at Emblem Elementary School in Saugus, had two of her suggestions chosen: Rancho Pico Junior High will be built in the Stevenson Ranch area, and she was one of four people who submitted the name Golden Valley High School for property south of Soledad Canyon Road, near the future intersection of Via Princessa and Golden Valley Road.

Ibarbia said the ideas came to her when she read a Santa Clarita Valley history project that her daughter's third-grade class had compiled.

``In the 1860s over in Pico Canyon, they had the first (commercial) oil well drilled in California,'' Ibarbia said. The name Rancho Pico reflects the area's history as a Spanish land grant as well as the historical significance of the oil drilling activity, she said.

Ibarbia had three ideas for the other campus. ``I submitted Golden Valley High School, Santa Clarita High School and Mentry High School, (the latter) for Mr. Mentry who had the first schoolhouse in this valley,'' she said.

``In 1842, Francisco Lopez found the first gold in Placerita Canyon. He was sitting under the oak tree and he pulled out a wild onion, and on the root was a golden nugget,'' Ibarbia said.

Myron Groch, principal of Santa Clarita Elementary School, submitted another winning entry, Rio Norte Junior High. He and his son, Aaron, a senior at Valencia High School, collaborated because the teen had taken Spanish classes.

``We knew that the area is referred to as North River,'' Groch said of the proposed junior high site, near Decoro Drive and McBean Parkway. He and Aaron, 17, thought it was ``pretty cool'' that Rio Norte, which will probably become the district's fifth junior high, will carry their suggested name.

``That's something that, after we're dead and gone, it'll still be there,'' Groch said.

Crunelle said district officials hope the next junior high can open during the 2000-2001 school year, and that the fifth high school would open by the 2001-2002 school year.

It's unclear which campus - Golden Valley or West Ranch - would be the district's fifth high school. West Ranch will be beyond the current dead end of Valencia Boulevard, west of Interstate 5, Crunelle said.

``When these schools are built, I would like to be there for the opening. Now that they're going to carry the names I gave them, I feel like they're part of me,'' Ibarbia said.