Oak Park history closely tied to school district’s boundaries





BREAKING GROUND—After Pat Manning moved to Oak Park in 1968, she helped organize a small group of parents determined to establish their own local school district. In May 1977, that dream became a reality when the Oak Park United School District was opened.

BREAKING GROUND—After Pat Manning moved to Oak Park in 1968, she helped organize a small group of parents determined to establish their own local school district. In May 1977, that dream became a reality when the Oak Park United School District was opened.

When Pat Manning moved to Oak Park in 1968, the masterplanned community built by Metropolitan Development Corporation seemed to be a perfect place for her growing family.

Five-bedroom homes were available for about $23,000, and the sprawling hills and open space offered the Manning family a welcome change from the bustling city life of Chicago.

When Manning and her husband signed the deed on their Oak Park home, they assumed they’d purchased a home in Agoura— which was their mailing address— and that their four children would attend Las Virgenes schools.

“We looked at Agoura High School,” said Manning, a founding member of Oak Park Unified School District. “We didn’t realize the Ventura County line separated Oak Park from Agoura High School, which was in Los Angeles County.”

Brookside Elementary School had just been built in Oak Park, but it was in the Simi Valley school district. New families in the area didn’t realize that their children in middle and high schools would have to travel far to attend classes; there were no secondary schools in the area.

Manning, now a resident of Banning, Calif., said Oak Park families with older children put their seventh-to-12th-graders in Thousand Oaks schools.

“When there were enough (students) to fill a bus, Simi Valley Unified School District decided to transport the kids to Simi Valley. . . . It was a long trip for the kids (with) the bus driving on Moorpark Road to Simi Valley, as the 23 Freeway hadn’t been built,” Manning said. “For the parents and students, this resulted in approximately a 25-mile trip each way.”

Oak Park’s history is interwoven with the fabric of its school district, which will celebrate its 35th anniversary at 6:30 p.m. Thurs., May 31 with a book signing at Barnes & Noble in the T.O. Promenade shopping center. A book on the history of Oak Park, “Images of America: Oak Park,” by Harvey Kern, David E. Ross, Derek Ross and Harry Medved, will be offered for sale as a fundraiser for the cash-strapped district.

Manning, a guest speaker at the event, will discuss the history of Oak Park and sign books. The event will include a birthday cake and a contest for children, “Know Your Community.”

Barbara Preston, a former student who rode the bus to Simi Valley, will share her memories of school life in Oak Park.

Proceeds from the sale of the book will be donated to Friends of Oak Park Schools, an educational foundation that supports school programs.

Co-author Medved, a three-year resident of Oak Park, said he hopes book sales at various events will bring $20,000 to the school district.

“As we look toward the future we have to remember and honor the pioneers of the past,” Medved said. “If it weren’t for Pat Manning and her committee . . . we wouldn’t be here today.”

David Ross, another early Oak Park resident and co-author of the history book, still lives in his home on Bayberry Street.

“The reason we could afford Oak Park was that when a family had a child in the sixth grade at Brookside Elementary School, they would often put their house up for sale,” Ross said. “They did not want to subject their child to a (25)-mile one-way bus trip into Simi Valley for junior and senior high school.”

Ross said his family believed that, since their oldest child was only in first grade, the problem would be resolved by the time he entered middle school.

“The issue was indeed resolved in the nick of time, just as our son was completing sixth grade,” Ross said.

Manning and other families were determined to establish a school district in their own backyard. She formed a committee of 10 like-minded residents who wrangled with politicians and school officials for a full decade before Oak Park Unified School District opened on May 31, 1977.

Manning and four others headed the school district’s first board of education.

Oak Park High School was built in 1981 and shared a campus with Medea Creek Middle School for 10 years before the middle school got its own campus on Doubletree Road in 1992.

Kern, a co-author of the book who lived on Maplegrove Street until 2006, said he moved into his home on Memorial Day, 1968.

“When we first bought our house there was no street,” Kern said. “We picked (a home) from the map.”

Kern’s daughters were among the first students at Brookside Elementary. His daughter Ilana was among the first to attend Oak Park High School.

“The nicest part of Oak Park then and now is the community feeling,” Kern said. “People watch over each other, take care of each other.”

Derek Ross, (no relation to David) another co-author of the Oak Park history book, said the goal of writing the book was to “uncover the unwritten history of Oak Park and to celebrate its unsung heroes— and Pat Manning is one of them.”

“We live in an amazing community, and . . . we wanted to tell the story of how it got that way. We hope that residents will never take for granted what these pioneers did to make our quality of life so special.”


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