Flush with funding from a multimillion-dollar bond measure that passed in 2000, Wiseburn officials are barely in the planning stages of rebuilding Cabrillo Elementary and Dana Middle schools from the ground up. But already drawing fire from members of a local homeowners group is the district's decision to take a second look at how the two Hawthorne campuses are situated on their respective plots of land.
Wiseburn trustees, for example, are studying the possibility of moving Cabrillo's point of entry from the multi-lane 135th Street to the quietly residential 134th Street to the north. Members of the community say that move would draw unwanted traffic into the heart of their neighborhood, where narrow roads are already clogged with cars, trucks and SUVs before and after school.
A separate proposal to move nearby Dana Middle School east to a spot closer to Isis Avenue -- and closer to Cabrillo -- also has been blasted by nearby residents, who say traffic would bottle up in the short distance between the two schools. Furthermore, they say homes that now border green ball fields would be that much closer to classrooms, bustling walkways and noisy parking lots.