When David Huffaker moved to Castaic in 1985, he was certain that one day his children would graduate from a brand new high school that the community had been promised for so long.
But his son is 20 now and serving his Mormon mission in Salt Lake City and Wyoming. His daughter is a senior at West Ranch High in Valencia, the next suburb over. And Castaic still lacks its own high school.
Residents in this semirural canyon community on the far edge of Los Angeles County have waited more than a decade for a high school to call their own. They voted -- twice now -- in favor of multimillion-dollar bond measures that they expected would go toward building the campus and waited in frustration as site after site was considered and rejected.
"It's just a lousy situation," Huffaker said.
A high school, many residents believe, would be embraced as a landmark in Castaic, a facility that would finally give the community a sense of identity, a sports team to root for, a campus students could actually walk to, a place for folks to gather.
"Having a high school within our community will go a long way to promote community pride," said Steve Teeman, president of the Castaic Area Town Council, an advisory board that represents the unincorporated town before the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors.
Castaic is hardly a start-up town. It was settled around 1915 at the time the two-lane Ridge Route was completed over the mountain tops, cutting a grinding, uphill pathway from Castaic to Gorman. Once little more than a truck stop alongside Interstate 5, it is now a place of sprawling equestrian lots, modern tract homes and neighborhood shopping centers. There are three grade schools and one junior high.
But no high school. The effort to build a campus has been stymied by various roadblocks -- developer money problems, disagreements over designs, concerns about traffic and noise, and a fear of urban encroachment. Some blame the delay on the William S. Hart Union High School District, which is headquartered in nearby Santa Clarita.
"They have continuously promised Castaic a high school and they have continuously failed to deliver on this," said John Kunak, a Castaic area resident of 22 years and president of the Castaic Union School District board, which serves students in kindergarten through eighth grade.
School district officials say Castaic residents themselves are partly at fault for opposing some of the possible locations.
