School campuses could be useful for family recreation

As a 15-year resident with a child who graduated from Wildwood Elementary, Redwood Middle School and Thousand Oaks High School, I have an observation that will help make Thousand Oaks schools more important to the community and improve our ability to approve important school bonds.

I'd like to submit this for consideration by our candidates running for the school board.

All of us appreciate having a high quality school district that prepares our children for college and life, and I believe that Conejo Valley Unified School District does this.

Schools, however, historically play a bigger role in communities as public facilities for recreation. When my daughter was young, the local elementary school was a great place to go and shoot baskets, hit a handball or throw a Frisbee during the weekend or summer. Now it's locked except for school hours.

Likewise, many of us would appreciate being able to run on a track. The high school was a logical place to do this as a publicly owned track.

Now the only people who get to use it are student athletes or children and friends of staff members.

I realize that there are issues with respect to vandalism, etc. However, I also believe that some compromises can be made to adequately safeguard these public places and still allow their use by the public.

If school facilities also serve other public functions, then they'll be useful to residents of the community that don't have children enrolled in them.

I believe that this will help more of the people in our city appreciate that our schools are truly in the public interest. Mike Ambrose Thousand Oaks