Del Sol High School opened on time Wednesday with full water, sewer and storm drain services thanks to a last-minute agreement reached Monday afternoon by Oxnard Union School District and City of Oxnard officials.
“We are pleased that the city and the district could come together to support the students, families, and staff to make these connections a reality,” said Dr. Tom McCoy, Oxnard Union High School superintendent to VIDA Newspaper.
As recently as Monday morning it appeared Del Sol might have to open with students forced to use portable toilets because Oxnard officials would not sign off on a traffic management plan.
On Monday morning City Manager Alex Nguyen said to VIDA Newspaper the plans the school district had submitted were “woefully deficient.”
“They never hired a traffic engineer to work on the plan,” Nguyen said in a Monday to VIDA Newspaper. “That explains to me why they’ve been submitting woefully insufficient plans.”
But McCoy said that the district’s plans had been given the stamp approval of a licensed traffic engineer, and that the district had for months been submitting a complete traffic safety plan with sidewalks, signaled intersections and crosswalks.
“But there were minor details that needed to be ironed out, we’re discussing those right now,” McCoy said in a Monday afternoon while city and district staff talked about the plan that was ultimately agreed to.
“While the Oxnard Union High School District (School District) Board of Trustees and Superintendent claimed the City of Oxnard is responsible for the potential delayed opening of Del Sol High School by refusing to provide access to water, the fact is it’s about much more than water. The School District leadership has failed to meet its own construction deadlines and is now pressuring the City to approve plans that would not provide safe access to Del Sol High School via sidewalks, properly marked crosswalk intersections, working traffic signals and other street safety improvements, thus allowing the opening of the new school before the necessary safety improvements are completed” said Nguyen on Friday prior to reaching an agreement.
“The City has worked diligently with the School District, even amending the School District’s agreement for the development of key components of Del Sol High School when their construction schedule fell behind. We trusted the School District to at least meet the public safety conditions required in their agreement. Clearly, that was a mistake,” said Nguyen.
The district’s school board held a special meeting on Saturday – voting to open Wednesday with 20 portable toilets and imported well water if necessary – and district staff worked through the weekend and all-day Monday to get a plan submitted to the city.
Following a Monday afternoon phone call from Mayor John Zaragoza, city and district staff reached a final agreement on the plan.
Oxnard Union connected city utilities, completed the crosswalk striping and turn on traffic signal lights at Gibraltar Street and the Del Sol Main Entrance on Tuesday just in time for school on Wednesday.
For the next two months there will be crossing guards at intersections around the Del Sol campus as an extra safety precaution, both before and after school.
The new school is located at 1975 Camino Del Sol, between Rose and Rice avenues, has about 500 students as well as 27 teachers and 16 staff.
In addition to those, said McCoy, each sports team has a coach and the Oxnard Police Department is supplying a school resource officer.
The new high school will serve the neighborhoods of Lemonwood, Rose Park and La Colonia as well as other surrounding neighborhoods.
“The District and its Board of Trustees are excited to see all future Jaguars attend Del Sol High School,” McCoy said.