Area Students Facing Many Changes as Classes Get Under Way : Education: Uniforms and bus fees in Simi Valley and a new middle school in Moorpark are a few of the adjustments marking start of school this week.

Five-year-old Nichelle O’Brien glanced quizzically at her new plaid jumper as her mother pulled the stiff blue and gray uniform over her kindergartner-size frame.

“It’s a little long,” she said. “But I have to grow into it.”

Nichelle and her 625 schoolmates at Garden Grove School in Simi Valley will adjust to the fit of new uniforms this school year as their elementary campus launches a voluntary uniform policy.

Garden Grove is the only school in Ventura County taking advantage of a new state law allowing uniforms in public schools, but it’s not the only campus that will confront dramatic changes as the new school year begins this week.

Besides the uniforms at Garden Grove, Simi Valley schools face another first: Parents will be required to pay for school busing--a charge the district was forced to impose to make up a financial shortfall.

In the neighboring Conejo Valley Unified School District, special-education students at two schools will share classes with mainstream students for the first time.

Some Thousand Oaks sixth-graders will enter middle school classrooms Thursday for the first time since Colina Middle School--formerly Colina Intermediate--adopted a reconfiguration plan for grades six, seven and eight in the spring.

And in Moorpark, hundreds of students will attend classes at the new Mesa Verde Middle School campus, which will help relieve overcrowding at Chaparral Middle School.

“I think change is accelerating in our schools,” Ventura County Supt. of Schools Charles Weis said. “People are trying to get our schools ready for the 21st Century.”

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One of the most visual changes in the county will be apparent Thursday, when the majority of Garden Grove School students arrive for the first day of school in blue pants or skirts and white tops embossed with the school logo.

Although other Ventura County schools have established strict dress codes forbidding baggy, oversized clothing, Garden Grove is the first school to establish a uniform policy.

School officials hope the common attire will allow students to focus more on academics and less on fashion.

“Children want to have uniforms on,” Principal Elroy Peterson said. “They want to identify what school they go to and show pride in the way they look.”

Parents were able to buy the uniforms, which include shorts, culottes, sweaters and knit shirts, at Target and JCPenny, but also at the school, where a uniform supply company held three summer sales.

Waiting on campus for her mother to buy her new blue and white outfits last week, 7-year-old Jessica Moss said now she won’t fight with her mother over what to wear to school every day.

“I want to wear a uniform because before I would say, ‘I want to wear these clothes,’ and then I’d say, ‘No, I want to wear these clothes,’ ” the second-grader said.

Jessica’s mother, Joan Moss, is equally relieved.

“It is pretty easy, you either wear the pants or the skirt,” she said. “I think most parents think it is a good idea.”

Moss said the uniforms are also cheaper than buying new school clothes.

“I usually spend $300 to $350,” she said. “This year I spent about $150 so the cost is less.”

Prices for Garden Grove’s uniforms range from $33 for a girls’ plaid jumper to $12 for a knit-collared shirt. Boys’ twill pants cost between $16.50 to $22.50, depending on size, and girls’ and boys’ shorts vary in price from $15.50 to $20.50.

About 95% of the school’s parents have already bought uniforms for the start of the school year, Vice Principal Judy Cannings said.

Students who do not wear uniforms are required to adhere to the school’s dress code, which states that students must wear collared or crew-necked shirts tucked in at the waist, and properly fitting pants or shorts.

The dress code also prohibits hats, tank tops, sweat pants and disruptive hairstyles.

While some parents have complained that Garden Grove’s dress code is as restrictive as the uniform policy, the school’s tough rules were supported recently by a new state law permitting school districts to require students to wear uniforms. The law, which Gov. Pete Wilson signed last month, takes effect Jan. 1.

“I think our society is changing, and that is one of the changes for the better,” Cannings said, adding that other Ventura County schools may decide to follow Garden Grove’s lead.

“I certainly think other schools in Ventura County are looking at us,” she said. “I don’t know if we are part of a trend, but we are being watched.”

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Supt. Joseph Spirito of the Ventura Unified School District has instructed his 25 principals to form task forces to investigate whether families would welcome dress codes.

Another change in the Simi Valley Unified School District stirring debate is the district’s new policy on bus transportation.

Faced with cutting $2.5 million to balance the district’s $77.1-million budget, the school board decided earlier this year to adopt a “transportation user’s fee” beginning with the 1994-95 school year. Conejo Valley Unified, the only other Ventura County school district to charge for school busing, began imposing fees two years ago.

Starting Thursday, Simi Valley students must present a credit card-sized plastic pass to ride the bus to school. The passes cost $300 a year or $150 a semester.

The new policy has not been well received, district officials said. Based on the number of bus passes sold, transportation director Frank Smith said school ridership is down about 75%.

“I have talked to many districts (that charge for busing); it usually starts out low and increases,” Smith said. “I think most people when you have to put additional money out of your pocket are going to be upset.”

Simi Valley parent Stella Kenton, who refused to pay for school busing, said her daughter will walk home from Berylwood School this year--a two-mile hike for the fourth-grader.

“I think that a lot of people are going to let their kids walk just as we are doing,” she said.

City officials said they intend to study whether more students walk than take a bus because of the fees, and whether more crossing guards might be needed. But they said they have no immediate plans to increase the number of crossing guards. The city now has 22 guards.

“We just got a request this week from the school district for six new guards,” said Diane Jones, the city’s environmental services director. “But what is important for people to realize is that we don’t have any history at this point. Once school has started, we have to wait for patterns to develop.”

Jones said the city’s study will probably begin in October.

In the meantime, Stella Kenton worries that her daughter and other children who walk to and from school will be endangered as they try to cross busy intersections.

“I can understand that (the district) has a money problem,” she said. “(But) it seems like they are not working for the kids.”

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In the Conejo Valley, three schools have changes for the coming school year.

Thousand Oaks special-education students, who previously attended classes limited to children with disabilities, will now be integrated into classes at Park Oaks and Maple elementary schools.

The new program will allow about 15 students, most of whom have multiple learning disabilities, to enroll in some regular classes rather than be bused to one of the district’s seven campuses that enroll special-education students.

“Fifty years ago, special-education people and kids were isolated away from the world,” said Conejo Valley Supt. Jerry C. Gross, a former special-education teacher.

“We’ve gradually moved away from isolation to what we call normalization or mainstreaming,” he said. “The idea is that these youngsters and adults should be put into environments with normalcy.”

Times correspondent Jeff McDonald contributed to this story.