Trustees to Vote on Attendance Boundary Issues

SIMI VALLEY — School trustees are scheduled to vote on changes in attendance boundaries tonight as a result of changing demographics and a new elementary school.

The first decision will determine who will attend the new Wood Ranch Elementary School, which is being built off Martha Morrison Drive and slated to open next fall.

As outlined in a map to be proposed to the Simi Valley Unified School District board, the school’s attendance area is bordered by city limits on the west and south. A strip of land running north of the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library outlines the northern boundary and a curved line running from Madera Road past the Sinaloa Golf Course to the west of Valley Gate Road is proposed to be the eastern border.

Marybeth Jacobsen, a parent on the Wood Ranch school committee, said she sees no problem with the current proposal. Everyone is included who should be, she said.

Problems may crop up, however, when trustees make another school boundary decision Tuesday, board members say.

To make room for the district’s growing student body, future students who would have attended the bulging Park View Elementary School may now have to attend Madera Elementary School, which has a lower enrollment.

Siblings of Park View students would have the choice of attending either school; students who already go there will be able to graduate.

Trustees Carla Kurachi and Janice DiFatta said Park View is an extremely popular school and some families may object to leaving.

In another item, trustees will decide whether to limit enrollment at two other campuses--White Oak Elementary School and Valley View Middle School--to students who live in the schools’ attendance boundaries. Currently, the schools are open to students outside their boundaries who request permission to enroll.