Local students back in school
By John Loesing
Acorn Staff Writer

Look around.

There’s a new building here and a new principal there. Teachers, classes, even the landscape have changed and students are excited, but apprehensive.

Ready or not, school is back.

"I like making new friends and seeing my old friends. I like seeing who my new teacher is," said Kenzie Pattee, a 9-year-old student at Oak Hills Elementary School in Oak Park.

Students returned to classes yesterday at Oak Park, Las Virgenes and Conejo Valley unified school districts.

Red Oak Elementary School in Oak Park has a new principal. She’s Sondra Rosenthal from the San Marcos school district in San Diego.

"We’re very excited about her coming on board," said Marilyn Lippiatt, Oak Park superintendent of schools.

Rosenthal replaces the departed Jeff Hamlin.

In October, construction will begin on a new activity center for students at Oak Park High School. Work continues in the meantime on a new campus library.

Administrators put into place a new "11-step" program that deals with a wide range of high school issues including academics, attendance and discipline. The school also has a new requirement that starting with the class of 2004, all graduating seniors must take a full year of visual and performing arts’ classes.

"We’re looking for a great year. We think we’re doing well," Lippiatt said.

Agoura High School welcomes the new academic year with some much-needed cosmetic changes. A new courtyard and landscaping will greet visitors when they arrive on campus. Parent volunteers Sandy Thomas and Nancee Baldino worked with the school to plant shrubs, build retaining walls and install benches throughout the main part of the campus. Volunteer work from Eagle Scouts and private business donations helped complete the project.

The school’s crown jewel will be a new, all-weather $450,000 track surrounding the football field. Finishing touches on the track weren’t completed until the weekend, just in time for the new fall season.

The school’s pockmarked, 30-year-old dirt track has finally bitten the dust.

"On a dirt track, there’s injuries and everything, and when it rains you can’t do anything. This is going to be a big improvement," Thomas said.

The Agoura High School Parent Faculty Club helped raise an additional $10,000 to paint the track blue and gold to match the school colors.

"That was one of our goals, to promote school pride," Thomas said.

Other improvements include new tile, decking and electronic scoreboard at the high school swimming pool.

Agoura High also will host afternoon and evening classes for Pierce College for the first time.

And for the first time in three years, students will return to Calabasas High School without any major construction in their way. The school finally completed its $3 million facelift, which includes a new track similar to Agoura’s. According to Las Virgenes Assistant Superintendent Don Zimring, work still needs to be done on the boys’ locker room and the school sign.

Workers had just completed an overhaul of 20 classrooms at Lupin Hill Elementary School in Calabasas when the students arrived yesterday.

And at Westlake High School, work continues on a new swimming school at the south end of the campus. It should be ready sometime in March, officials said.

Despite the changes, not all students are thrilled about going back to school.

"I don’t like seeing the boys, they bug me," said Danielle Roach, a first-grader at White Oak Elementary in Westlake Village.

And, "I don’t like having to work," said Bobby Bitton, a first-grader at Red Oak Elementary in Oak Park.

The Conejo Unified District, including Westlake High School, is the largest in the area with 21,000 students. The Las Virgenes enrollment is 12,100 and Oak Park is 3,500.

Linda Kern contributed to this story.