Fewer students the fault of trustees who left

Meadows parents get it. Mike Dunn gets it. Unfortunately, the other four members of the Conejo Valley Unified School District Board of Education don't.

Retiring board members Dolores Didio and Dorothy Beaubien must take responsibility for the decline in enrollment as parents have become unhappy with our public schools.

In the early '90s they supported and voted for outcomebased education and the CLAS (California Learning Assessment System) test. It cost millions of dollars for the California taxpayers and was instrumental in the beginning of the great exodus of parents from public schools.

They looked to alternative educational options—charter, private, parochial and home schooling. Today, there are more than a thousand students in these options.

In addition, some of the curriculum that the majority on the board approved became questionable: fuzzy "Everyday Math," graphic sex education, as well as health textbooks defining marriage that went beyond just a man and a woman.

To add insult to this, standards at schools became lax, including dress, social and expectations.

With the opening of Oaks Christian High School in the late '90s and the advancement in online education opportunities, public schools in our area faced a big challenge.

Unfortunately, the ones in charge of making policy ignored the writing on the wall. Had they tried to keep families together, this might not have happened.

They could have offered a K8 at University Elementary and a magnet performing arts school at Meadows. Sycamore Canyon School ushered in the first K-8, and is full. Parents who had hoped to have their children attend it couldn't and chose home schooling instead.

Hopefully, traditional values, fiscal responsibility and academic achievement will be just some of the attributes that our new trustees will exhibit in their resumes. John Andersen is one; I'm looking for a second. Elaine McKearn Thousand Oaks

McKearn served on the CVUSD board of education from 1994 through '98.