School districts resist call for consolidation

Area school districts have turned a cold shoulder to the recent Ventura County grand jury recommendation that some of the districts consolidate their facilities and services in order to save taxpayer dollars.

In its May report, "School District Administration: Is the Cost Too High?" the grand jury recommended the 20 public school districts in Ventura County be reduced to just six, which would save millions of dollars in administrative costs.

Moorpark Unified School District flatly rejected the county's recommendation that it merge with Simi Valley Unified.

Conejo Valley and Oak Park school officials are also opposed to unification.

School boards for the local districts were told to respond to the grand jury findings by July 17.

Ellen Smith, Moorpark superintendent, said Simi Valley and Moorpark are mediumsized districts that operate efficiently already.

"A merger between Simi Valley and Moorpark unified would not reduce the need for many of the classified support salaries included in the grand jury's report, nor would it necessarily make operations more efficient," Smith said.

Simi Valley Superintendent Kathryn Scroggin agreed.

"Both districts maintain staffing which corresponds directly to the size of the workload generated by the number of students who attend their schools," Scroggin said. "The same type of support would be necessary regardless of whether the districts operated independent of one another or as a consolidated Clarger district."

Bigger doesn't mean better

Tony Knight, Oak Park superintendent, said he's against combining his seven-campus school district with the 29 schools of CVUSD.

"In these times, with an emphasis on charter schools and local autonomy, I think that it's time to look for smaller schools and districts rather than larger ones," Knight said. "If you look at the highest achieving school systems in California, you will see that they are smaller with local control."

Knight said he's "unconvinced" that combining districts would actually save money.

Conejo and Oak Park—at $643 and $880 respectively—are two of the lowest perstudent administrative-cost districts among the 20 studied by the grand jury.

In OPUSD's response to the grand jury report, Knight said the identity of Oak Park and its residents is "largely based around the schools," and educational programs would be "disrupted" if the district were to consolidate with the larger, neighboring school district. The move "would hinder the educational performance in OPUSD and would severely compromise the level of education that OPUSD students receive," Knight said.

Combining services

The Conejo board did say it intends to pursue the grand jury's recommendation for consolidation of support services with the Ventura County Office of Education.

CVUSD works with the county on staff development, administrative and instructional software selection, infrastructure design and installation, and business and student data systems support. The transportation of special needs students is also a collaborative effort.

Moorpark also agreed to a consolidation of services. Smith said her district contracts with Simi Valley and the county office for certain specialized programs that Moorpark isn't able to offer.

Small and expensive

According to the grand jury report, the cost of administering school districts in Ventura County is $128 million per year. Even though some districts, such as Santa Clara Elementary School District in Santa Paula, consist of just one school, they each have superintendents, a school board and support staff that are paid salaries and benefits.

The grand jury recommended that the Mesa and Somis Union elementary school districts, each with only two schools, join the Pleasant Valley Elementary School District's 13 schools in Camarillo.

It was also recommended that five districts—Hueneme Elementary School District (11 schools), Ocean View Elementary School District (four schools), Oxnard Elementary School District (20 schools), Oxnard Union High School District (nine schools) and Rio Elementary School District (eight schools) merge into one district.

The grand jury report is at grandjury.countyofventura.org.

Stephanie Bertholdo contributed to this story.