OXNARD : High Schools Try to Ease Crowding

The Oxnard Union High School District has approved plans to reduce crowding in two of its high schools by realigning enrollment boundaries.

Under the plan, 157 students enrolled in Channel Islands and Oxnard high schools next September will be transferred to the less-crowded Rio Mesa and Hueneme high schools. Students at Camarillo High School and Frontier High School will not be affected by the boundary changes.

Reacting to parents’ concerns that brothers and sisters will be separated by the boundary changes, trustees said they will allow students with siblings in the district to attend either the older student’s high school or the school of the new ninth-grader.

The trustees said the changes are necessary to even out enrollment in the 11,000-student district. Channel Islands High School is the most crowded of the district’s six schools, with 2,692 students in a school designed for 2,240. Oxnard High School is the second-most crowded, with 2,379 students in a school designed to hold 2,060.

The realignment of boundaries will last until 1993 or 1994, when construction is expected to be completed on two new schools in Oxnard. By then, the district expects to absorb an additional 1,000 students into its system.

But crowding has already become so serious within the two high schools that trustees have been forced to make the interim changes, said Gary Davis, assistant superintendent for educational services.