Magnet School Attracts Problems

MOORPARK —  School officials say they have lured enough students to fill the district’s first magnet school, and have finished hiring most of the teachers and planned much of Walnut Canyon elementary’s curriculum.

“There’s just one problem,” trustee Clint Harper said about the new campus on Casey Road. “There’s no school.”

After persuading parents to send their children to the school, school officials conceded the 420 students enrolled won’t take classes in the building until January.

Rain problems and additional safety requirements for the building have prompted construction delays that have pushed back the original September opening date. Installation of a traffic signal near the school also will be pushed back.

The result is students will be bused to four other district campuses until the school is completed, Moorpark Unified School District Supt. Tom Duffy said.

During winter break, the teachers will move their materials into the new school and the children will follow in January, Duffy said.

The new school’s principal, Theresa Williams, updated parents Wednesday in the Mountain Meadows area, explaining the delays.

The more than 100 parents who attended the meeting appeared mostly supportive of the new campus despite the delay in opening.

One parent seemed to have second thoughts and asked district officials whether it was too late to re-enroll her child at the child’s current school.

But most seemed concerned with the specifics of the transition this fall, asking questions on the busing schedule and new after-school programs.

Parent Beth Tiffin enrolled her 11-year-old daughter Jessica at the new school and said she hoped the delay won’t extend past January.

“I’m hoping it will work out and be OK,” she said. “I’m trying to keep optimistic. It’s also frustrating when you had your hopes set.”.

Pauline Pitman said she has a child in kindergarten and another in fourth grade and had hoped to keep them both at Walnut Canyon, which will be the district’s only K-5 school.

“I was really upset at first, but I think it will be OK. My concern is how long is this going to be dragged out?” she said.

After learning about the delay, school board members quizzed district staff members on the performance of the Upland-based W.D. Gott Construction Co.

Duffy said it was not a question of the construction company’s competence, but rather El Nino-related problems that contributed to the school’s late opening.

“We had rain delays that were substantial, where no work could be done,” he said.

Construction workers had to regrade the site because the rain caused erosion to the graded area, Duffy said. Another factor in the delay is that the district is still working with Caltrans to get a traffic signal installed at Casey and Walnut Canyon roads to make it safer for parents to turn into the school. That signal most likely will not be completed before mid-November, according to district officials.

Moreover, while the design of the school is similar to Arroyo West School, opened in 1990, and Campus Canyon School, opened in 1987, it’s the first campus requiring ceiling-placed sprinklers, Duffy said. The complexity of the building design also made it difficult to install the sprinklers, he added.

The delayed opening mean additional expenses for students bused to four district campuses: Peach Hills, Mountain Meadows, Arroyo West and Flory schools.

District staff members did not provide an estimated cost but anticipate it would require two additional buses and two drivers. This worried trustees who said the district is already strapped for money. The Moorpark Unified School District has failed twice in its attempts to pass a $16-million school bond measure for school improvements. The failed measures, however, had no affect on the school construction delays.

Trustee Gary Cabriales, who earlier this week called a special board meeting to question staff members on the delays, said he was disappointed he would have to tell parents the school won’t open as expected.

“This is something we have touted for a long time . . . ,” Cabriales said. “It’s just unfortunate we didn’t get it together.”

Board members agreed one of them would sit in on some of the construction meetings to ensure everything was running as smooth as possible.

School officials initially had worried they would have to force students to attend the new school to achieve ethnic balance. But after developing the magnet concept--a school specializing in performing arts and technology and offering after-school programs--officials succeeded in drawing enough students to the school--so much so that the campus already has a waiting list of 40 students, Williams said.

In the meantime, officials at the Conejo Valley Unified School District, which incurred similar problems with construction of their new Lang Ranch Elementary School after the El Nino-related storms, said Thursday they expect to open Sept. 2 as planned.

Final work on the outdoor shrubbery and playground areas may still be in progress a week after school starts, but “we plan to open the first day of school,” Gary Mortimer, an assistant superintendent, said. “We’ve been able to somehow keep the projects within a couple weeks of schedule.”