TUSTIN : Trustees to Vote on Boundary Proposal

Felix Delprado does not want his daughter to face ridicule and harassment, but he is afraid that will happen if she is forced to leave her neighborhood high school to attend another campus on the other side of town.

The Tustin Unified School District will decide the fate of Delprado’s daughter and hundreds of other students Monday when the school board is scheduled to vote on proposed boundary changes for Tustin and Foothill high schools.

The proposed changes would shuffle hundreds of the district’s high school students between the two campuses.

“These changes will make it worse for minority children because they will be subjected to ridicule and harassment,” Delprado said.

He said the district has not considered how the proposal will affect minority students who would be diverted to Foothill’s predominantly Anglo campus from Tustin High School’s more ethnically diverse student community.

However, that disparity in the makeup of the campuses is one of the main reasons for the changes, school officials said.

“Foothill High School is not the real world. Tustin High School is the real world,” district Supt. David L. Andrews said.

He said Foothill High’s student population is 77% Anglo compared to 49% at Tustin. The percentage of white students districtwide is 56%, he said.

The proposed changes would also help balance the size of both schools’ student body. Presently, Tustin has 558 more students than Foothill, Andrews said. Over the next four years, each school would reach a student count of about 2000.

“It is a very emotional issue,” said Venetia Jackman, vice president of the district’s Parent-Teacher Organization coordinating council. “People that have bought into the Tustin Ranch area are pretty upset because they were told their kids would go to Foothill.”

If approved, the new plan would mean most students in the area north of the Costa Mesa Freeway at Newport Avenue, east of La Colina Drive and north of Tustin Ranch Road would attend Foothill High School.

Currently, students north of 17th Street and east of La Colina Drive and those south of Browning Avenue to the Santa Ana Freeway attend Foothill High School.

The proposal has drawn fire from parents.

Residents in the Foothill boundary area who would become part of the Tustin zone say the changes will decrease their property values and could lower the overall academic achievement of Foothill students.

Residents in the Tustin area whose children would be diverted to Foothill High School say it is senseless to send students across town--especially since transportation would be a problem for many of them.

Parents also said that Tustin High students from low-income and minority families who switched to the Foothill campus would be ostracized by other students because of their economic and cultural differences.

For students currently enrolled at one of the high schools, the district will allow 10th-, 11th- and 12th-grade students to select which facility they want to attend through graduation. However, students entering high school the following year would be required to attend the high school mandated under the new plan.

By 1996, officials said, if attendance has leveled out between the schools, the district would probably go to open enrollment.

“If you set your emotions aside, you get a better view of the picture,” Jackman said. “This will benefit our kids in the long run.”