Camarillo transfers tighten with Rio Mesa’s IB program
Student interdistrict transfers from the Camarillo area have become more difficult this year as Rio Mesa High School continues into its seventh year as an International Baccalaureate (IB) school.
“The main reasons for (approved) transfers are for siblings and parents’ work,” said Kathy Greaves, director of student services at Oxnard Union High School District (OUHSD). “When students apply to leave OUHSD based on Newbury Park’s IB program, we say that we also have an IB program at Rio Mesa.”
Following Ventura County policy, students must complete an interdistrict transfer permit and submit it to their home district for approval before applying to enter another school district. Official reasons for transferring concern sibling priority, parents’ work, child care, educational programs and residency.
According to Principal Joshua Eby, there are currently around 300 enrolled students who have transferred from OUHSD, which makes up almost 12 percent of the student population. However, in the last two years since the arrival of new superintendent Dr. Gabe Soumakian, OUHSD has tried to retain its students by offering more programs and classes.
“It did get harder probably two years back when we got a new superintendent … then we tried our hardest to keep students and parents in district,” Greaves said. “We are looking at all programs in the surrounding districts and trying to add new things to our ‘menu’, (such as) Chinese and Japanese classes.”
“I wanted to have a block schedule,” freshman Quinn Badner said about his transfer. “I like the block schedule because it gives you more time in class to get work done and more opportunities to ask questions in class.”
Gavin Toy, junior, transferred from OUHSD because he was looking for a Chinese class and a better tennis team. He submitted his application in December 2011 through what he believes was a simple process.
“I actually got in the day before they said they were going to stop accepting people, so for me it was easy,” Toy said. “(OUHSD) started rejecting people because too many of us were leaving that school district to come to Conejo Valley, and they were losing money, so they wanted to stop it as much as possible. I guess that decision didn’t happen until after I had gone through.”
Since the California Department of Education grants public school funds based on the average daily attendance of students, the funding for students who transferred would be directed towards CVUSD instead of their home district, Eby confirmed.
Eby also said that although many students had been rejected two to three years ago, the main issue this year was the time it took for the interdistrict transfer permits to be approved.
“It took longer for us to get information from the district for the release of the students,” Eby said. “We’re up to over 2500 students now, so space availability has become more of a challenge for students who want to get in, and so parents were notified much later.”
Compared to Newbury Park’s 18 years and over 25 classes dedicated to the IB program, Rio Mesa’s program is much younger and has only about 12 classes. Their API score of 757 also falls short of Newbury Park’s 873 score, so students like Toy still believe that their transfer was the right choice.
“Newbury Park was a better school just in general, academically and all-around,” Toy said.
