OUSD board sifts through mixed news
By Bret Bradigan

Charter schools and swimming pools dominated discussion and decisions at a brisk Ojai Unified School District board of trustees meeting Tuesday evening.

The Valley Oak Charter School was given a clean bill of health, in contrast, the pool at Nordhoff High School, which failed a Monday inspection, was shut down for two days.

Not all pool-related news was bad, however, as Mark and Jill Davis were honored for dedicated volunteer service at the Nordhoff pool. The couple recently moved to Santa Barbara, but assured the board they would ease the transition.

"They shepherded that pool every day for 12 years," said Assistant Superintendent Jim Berube, in presenting the pair with a plaque with the warm applause of the board members. "They put in all this time and effort for this community and for our kids."

The transition to the next group of pool stewards has been less smooth than hoped. The pool's control board was apparently accidently turned off Friday, creating a mismatch in the chemical mix and water temperature. That, coupled by a surprise visit from a state inspector Monday morning, led to the pool being closed. It was expected, at press time, to be reopened Thursday after the inspector delivered a clean bill of health.

Another issue the inspector listed was the absence of changing rooms - which, Berube said, were overlooked, as they were nearby in trailers, and the absence of hot water for showers, which was fixed Thursday.

"It was a huge setback for water polo and other aquatic users," said Superintentent Dr. Tim Baird. The team missed several practices, but no home matches were scheduled for this week.

The 2-year-old charter school appeared to be running even more smoothly than expected, given that the small, state-sanctioned but largely independent schools, with teachers doubling up on administrative and accounting duties, often neglect financial reporting.
The charter school presently has three teachers, 62 students and a budget of $255,000.

Berube, who represents the district on the charter school board, said the school has performed well, despite several changes of staff and administration. Board member Kathi Smith urged Berube to inform the district - which has ultimate accountability for the tax dollars being spent - if anything were to go awry with the finances or operation of the school, "and we will revoke their charter at the earliest opportunity."

Baird said the charter has an accounting plan in place and will soon receive expert scrutiny of its bottom line.

The district's bottom-line expert, budget officer Danielle Pusatere, informed the board that the district was well within in its Gann limit, and gave her annual recitation of its origin and purpose for the benefit of new board members. The Gann limit was enacted by Proposition 4 in 1979 to limit the growth of school expenditures to inflation and population growth. Nearly all school districts are well within their Gann limits each year, she said.

Two agenda items dealt with the construction project at Nordhoff High School. Berube said construction of the new locker rooms began earlier this week and should be completed by early December, the same as the administration building will be ready. The new parking lot, which ties together the old lots "from one end to the other," Berube said, should be ready by Thanksgiving week.

In other business, the board approved a new biology textbook from publisher Prentiss-Hall, which, board member Tim Peddicord said, came highly recommended.

Kevin Horswell, the student representative, got the meeting off to a spirited start. He said the student senate at Nordhoff High School has been meeting to establish their priorities, one of which is expanding sports programs to include, possibly, field hockey, lacrosse and intramural competition against local private schools.

With the aid of counselor Janice McCormick, the students were a few steps closer to realizing the dream of Deno Lepas, a long-time teacher at Nordhoff who died Oct. 7, 2002, to build a large ceramic mural as part of a "Peace Through Understanding" project.

Baird's superintendent report ended the meeting on a somewhat more somber tone, as he said, in response to a question from Smith about transportation delays, that the issue would be taken up at the next board meeting on Oct. 21. "It's a safety issue," Smith said about that some students were waiting up to half an hour for bus rides home.
Baird said about this year's cuts to the transportation budget, "We can't disguise the cuts anymore. Everyone can see them."

© 2003 The Ojai Valley News

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