Ventura High

Hoping to stop the exodus of students from Ventura High and improve the school's image, the Ventura Unified School District is considering turning it into a magnet school by the fall of 1994, Supt. Joseph Spirito said Tuesday. Even though boundary changes a year ago were designed to equalize enrollments at the district's two high schools, Buena High is expected to have 2,200 students this fall versus 1,700 at Ventura.

Hoping to put a stop to recent racial fights at Ventura High School, teachers at the school spent Friday learning how to help students appreciate racial and cultural diversity and to solve disputes peacefully. The daylong workshop was led by Judith Rubenstein, a Santa Barbara-based specialist in conflict-resolution techniques. Rubenstein told the 60 teachers that problems at Ventura High are not unique.

Threats and violence against several black students and a guard at Ventura High School have led to the arrest of four teen-agers described by police as white supremacists, and school district administrators have called in a consultant to ease racial strife, authorities said Thursday. The arrests came after two incidents. One, on Jan. 26, involved racial taunting of black students and a threat to a black school guard; the other, on Feb. 4, involved a fistfight between black and white youths.

Parents of black students at Ventura High School protested on Friday an attack against the president of the Black Student Union and accused school officials of not doing enough to protect their children. About half a dozen relatives of black students met with school officials and then pulled their children out of school an hour early because the teen-agers were afraid to leave school unescorted.

Ventura High School's swimming coach had sex with two female students and made advances and sexually suggestive comments to others, school officials charged in a document filed Thursday with the state. Coach Dale Hahn also raised the grade of one of the girls he slept with to an A when it should have been a C or a D, according to the formal list of accusations.

Ventura High football Coach Harvey Kochel faces the loss of his teaching position regardless of the legal outcome of the allegations that he had sexual intercourse with a 16-year-old female student. Terence M. Kilbride, president of the Ventura Unified School District's Board of Education, said Thursday that Kochel faces a review by the board--and possible termination from the district--on suspicion of immoral behavior even if charges are not filed by the district attorney's office.

It will be up to Ventura City Council members to decide whether city residents vote this year or next on an initiative aimed at ending the closure of Poli Street during school hours. Organizers of the initiative to keep Poli open near Ventura High School failed to gather enough signatures to put the measure on November's ballot, City Clerk Barbara Kam said.

Ventura High School football coach Harvey Kochel pleaded guilty Thursday to having sex with a teen-age student and faces a mandatory prison term of up to six years. In an unannounced court appearance, Kochel, 48, entered guilty pleas to six felony counts and admitted a special allegation that he abused a position of trust. Investigators said Kochel engaged in a seven-month-long sexual relationship with the girl, who was 15 when Kochel met her in a health class he taught.

Five Ventura High School honor students were suspended Thursday for their role in vandalizing the campus of rival Buena High, an annual pre-football-game prank that officials said is proving costly to clean up. The students--all senior girls--admitted to school officials that they splashed cans of bright yellow paint across the Buena High campus Wednesday night, then scampered through it barefoot, leaving prints on walkways and a pep-rally stand.

Ventura police on Tuesday dropped their investigation of a former Ventura High School coach accused of having sex with students, saying detectives have been unable to find evidence of recent criminal activity, authorities said. But the Ventura school district is pursuing its case to fire former swim coach Dale Hahn based on allegations that he engaged in immoral conduct with students. Police began their investigation in December after the school district put Hahn on paid leave.