Ocean View Elementary District

A 6-year-old kindergartner who allegedly bit teachers, threw a desk, hit and spit at students and sent a teacher and her aide out on medical leave was sued Wednesday by a Huntington Beach school district, apparently the first lawsuit of its kind in Orange County. The suit by the Ocean View Elementary School District asks the court to remove Jimmy Peters, who is described in the suit as handicapped and developmentally disabled, from regular classes at Circle View Elementary School.

At a recent appearance before the local Democratic Club, Ventura schools Supt. Joseph Spirito spoke about the needs of his district's 27 campuses and the importance of an $81-million school bond measure that will appear on the June 3 special election ballot. "Do we want to provide a quality of life for our children in California and Ventura?" asked Spirito, who showed his support for the bond initiative by wearing a multicolored tie depicting a school bus loaded with students.

At a recent appearance before the local Democratic Club, Ventura schools Supt. Joseph Spirito spoke about the needs of his district's 27 campuses and the importance of an $81-million school bond measure that will appear on the June 3 special election ballot. "Do we want to provide a quality of life for our children in California and Ventura?" asked Spirito, who showed his support for the bond initiative by wearing a multicolored tie depicting a school bus loaded with students.

A 6-year-old kindergartner who allegedly bit teachers, threw a desk, hit and spit at students and sent a teacher and her aide out on medical leave was sued Wednesday by a Huntington Beach school district, apparently the first lawsuit of its kind in Orange County. The suit by the Ocean View Elementary School District asks the court to remove Jimmy Peters, who is described in the suit as handicapped and developmentally disabled, from regular classes at Circle View Elementary School.

. . . The Ocean View Elementary School District adopted guidelines for students with AIDS, though no such students were known in the district. The student would be removed from school while officials studied the case. The board would decide if the student would be allowed to return, based on factors including whether he or she was "prone to biting." Source: Times archives

Ocean View Elementary School District trustees have appointed an Oxnard College professor to replace board member Dennis Schlotfelt, who stepped down in August. Schlotfelt moved out of the district's south Oxnard attendance area this summer and was no longer qualified to serve as a trustee. There are three years left in the term. The remaining board members voted unanimously last week to appoint James Merrill, an English professor at Oxnard College.

Ocean View Elementary School District and a Costa Mesa development company have agreed on a plan for developing homes on unused school property that will bring about $6 million to the district, officials said. The district announced this week that its agreement with Warmington Homes "paves the way for construction of approximately 50 single-family homes on an unneeded school site near Graham Place and Slater Avenue in Huntington Beach."

Ocean View Elementary School District has received a $126,204 federal grant for continuation of its 3-year-old program designed to help non-English speaking students. The program, called Project Voyages, is based at Crest View School and uses the experiences and cultures of non-English speaking students as tools to teach them the language. The special classes combine art, creative writing, geography and social studies.

Ocean View school board candidate Eugene Mulcahy said this week that while he once intended to back out of the race, he is still running as a serious contender. In an interview early last month, Mulcahy, 38, said he planned to leave his name on the ballot but not seriously campaign at the request of a teachers union that endorsed another candidate.

The price of school lunches will increase 25% in the Ocean View Elementary School District this fall because the schools are receiving less surplus food from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, board members said. The Board of Education of the four-school Oxnard district voted Tuesday to raise the price from $1 to $1.25.

A 40-member committee charged with the task of desegregating Oak View School, whose student population is overwhelmingly Latino, began its three-month effort with an inaugural meeting Wednesday. The Ocean View Elementary School District Board of Trustees formed the committee last month in response to concerns that Oak View School has grown increasingly segregated in recent years.

Re "English Immersion and Proficiency," Ventura County Letters, Aug. 6. Amy Allison's response to Denis O'Leary's letter is full of distortions. It gives Proposition 227 the credit for the overall state of California's increase on the SAT 9 test, repeats the falsehood that bilingual education only gives students one hour of English per day and claims that after five years students in bilingual education are not proficient. Here are the facts: The overall state SAT 9 gain in English reading is nearly entirely attributable to test inflation that one always sees with standardized tests.