LATE-BREAKING NEWS FOR THE FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL—Thousand Oaks High School’s new principal Lou Lichtl, left, observes journalism students and editors of The Lancer. The student newspaper staff was finalizing a page for today’s firstdayofschool edition. The Lancer editorinchief Sean McMinn, second from left, edits a page with editors Giselle Quezada, Trevor Crown and Ben Longawa. Enrollment at Conejo Unified high schools is up this year. Despite budget cuts and teacher layoffs, there’s a bit of good news coming with the start of the school year today.

Nearly as many students as last year are starting school today in Conejo Valley Unified School District, a welcome departure from the past few years of seriously declining enrollment.

CVUSD expects to be down around 125 students, losing about 300 at the elementary school level, breaking about even at the middle school level and up 250 to 300 at the high schools.

“Some of it was predictable based on a very large eighth-grade class,” said Jeff Baarstad, deputy superintendent of business services. “We’re also getting stories that kids are coming from private schools at the high school levels. With the economy, some parents are looking at their budgets and deciding to go to public schools. Even at 10 or 15 kids at each high school, that’s 50 more kids for us.”

Last year it became apparent that declining enrollment could be slowing, although CVUSD still had about 350 fewer students.

“It appears that we are, in a sense, about even with last year,” said CVUSD planning technician Debbie Hanna. “We are still down some students, but it’s not severeWe may be leveling out.”

Baarstad agreed.

“It might mean that we’ve declined at the elementary level as much as we’re going to decline,” he said. “We might be seeing declining enrollment starting to bottom out.”

Summer work

Several projects were hammered out over the summer, including the continued gutting and renovation of the Westlake High School Performing Arts Center.

Pete Peterson, director of the district’s planning and facilities department, said the theater will be enlarged and seating will be increased.

The project won’t be completed until next spring.

Much work was done to the exterior corridors between buildings at Thousand Oaks High School. The beautification project included adding 80 park benches, 60 trees and additional stone seating.

The facilities department was also busy finishing the outdoor biolabs at EARThS (Environmental Academy for Research Technology and earth Sciences), the district’s new science and technology magnet school (formerly Manzanita Elementary).

Over the next year, some classrooms will be converted into additional science labs, including an aquatics lab.

CVUSD’s two shuttered schools, University and Meadows, also required a lot of preparation for new occupants. University is now home to the district’s child care program, and Meadows is now the MATES charter school.

New faces

Administration changes include Tim Carpenter, former principal of Thousand Oaks High School, who now serves as assistant superintendent, personnel services. Carpenter replaces JoAnn Yoos, who retired this year after 29 years with the district.

Mike Vollmert, former director of technology, is now an assistant principal at Westlake High School.

Lou Lichtl, former principal of Redwood Middle School, has taken the helm at TOHS. Steve Lepire, who was assistant principal at Westlake High School, is taking over for Lichtl.

Former assistant principal Shane Frank has replaced Mike Waters as principal at Colina Middle School. Waters is now principal at Conejo Valley Adult School.

There were several elementary school principal switches as well. Jeff Rickert moved from the nowdefunct University Elementary to Westlake Elementary. Paula Willebrands, the former Westlake principal, is now at Park Oaks. Judy Tetzlaff is the new Cypress principal after Meadows Elementary was closed.

Jeanne Valentine moved from Cypress to WeathersfieldSally Wennes moved from Glenwood to Banyan, and Martha Tureen came to Glenwood from Banyan.