Report proposes enrollment shift

Michael Miller

The Newport-Mesa Unified School District released an official report

Wednesday about student enrollment in Corona del Mar and Newport

Coast, after months of speculation and protest by parents who

suspected that their children would be barred from attending Newport

Coast Elementary School.

Susan Astarita, the assistant superintendent of elementary

education for Newport-Mesa, posted the report on the district’s

website and e-mailed copies of it to the five elementary schools in

the proposal area. The report outlines a temporary proposal for

changing the boundaries of school attendance zones in Newport Coast,

where population has grown quickly in recent years.

“It probably goes back 15 years to when the original projections

were made for the development,” Astarita said. “It’s just that more

families with children moved in than they expected.”

In October, when the district formed a study group to examine

demographics in Newport Coast and Corona del Mar, many Newport Coast

residents feared that administrators would remove them from the

Newport Coast Elementary attendance zone. The Newport-Mesa district

runs a Mello-Roos tax district in Newport Coast, established in 1990,

in which all residents have paid extra taxes to fund the construction

of the local school.

In the report issued Wednesday, the district proposed keeping

nearly all Newport Coast residents in the Newport Coast Elementary

zone, with the Aubergine and Provence neighborhoods on the north end

shifting to Lincoln Elementary. Residents in those neighborhoods

belong to a separate Mello-Roos district.

Starting in fall 2006, three groups of children could attend

Newport Coast Elementary: students currently enrolled, siblings of

currently enrolled students, and those with a birth certificate and a

family with a home in escrow in the Newport Coast Elementary zone

dating before Dec. 31, 2005. New students who moved into the Newport

Coast Elementary attendance zone would enter a lottery for

enrollment.

The district plans to hold a series of community meetings on the

rezoning plan from now until June, after which the Board of Education

will examine the matter.

Parents in Newport Coast expressed gratitude at the district’s

report, calling it a fair compromise.

“I was really pleased with how it came out,” said Darla Yancey,

who lives near the school. “I was disappointed that Aubergine and

Provence won’t be kept at Newport Coast Elementary, but I was happy

that they decided to deal with the overcrowding by treating all

neighborhoods the same and doing the lottery.”

Astarita noted that many of the complaints have come from recent

home buyers in Newport Coast, and that the district has involved

parents and administrators in study sessions for the rezoning all

year. The report, she said, came largely out of information gathered

at those sessions and from the district’s demographic consultants.

“As far as we’re concerned, we’re on the timeline,” Astarita said.

“There’s nothing ‘finally’ about it to us.”

The report also outlines minor zoning changes for Eastbluff and

Harbor View elementary schools, which may take additional students if

Lincoln runs out of room. Astarita said that Andersen, the fifth

elementary school in the proposal area, is full to capacity.

Newport Coast Elementary, which opened in 2001, recently added a

new, four-classroom building to its campus, and there are plans to

add three portable trailers for the upcoming school year.

“Our goal as a group now is going to be finding creative solutions

for overcrowding so we can be brought back into the Newport Coast

zone,” said Anna Schlotzhauer, who recently bought a home in Newport

Coast and plans to send her daughter to the neighborhood school in

2006. “Ideally, we’d like to see everyone in our communities going to

the same school.”

About the report, Schlotzhauer said, “We’re happy, not satisfied,

but happy that our point of view is being taken into consideration.”

* MICHAEL MILLER covers education and may be reached at (714)

966-4617 or by e-mail at [email protected].