Pressured by residents, officials with the Wiseburn School District say they are no longer considering shifting the entrance of a rebuilt Cabrillo Elementary north from the four-lane 135th Street to 134th Street, a narrow two-lane road that cuts between the campus and a row of neighborhood homes.
"The environmental report and all the testimony didn't show it to be viable," Superintendent Don Brann said this week, following the board's unanimous vote Tuesday.
Improving safety and efficiency were the primary goals as officials chewed over moving the driveway to 134th, but members of the Hollyglen Homeowners Association expressed concerns, saying traffic along the slender residential street already is snarled before and after school.
On Thursday, the association's Cindy Parsons said she was pleased that the school board was willing to hear from the neighborhood in two community meetings before making a decision.
"They are showing signs that they are now working with the community, that they have listened," Parsons said, "and I think that is very positive."
While many districts in California are spending millions of bond dollars to modernize aging facilities, Wiseburn has opted to rebuild three of its four schools from the ground up. That approach enables the district to construct new academic institutions that will be in use for at least the next 50 years, Brann said. It also gives officials a blank slate to get the most out of their campuses.
With that in mind, Wiseburn is considering several ways to reconfigure the footprints of Cabrillo Elementary at 5309 W. 135th St. and nearby Dana Middle School at 13500 Aviation Blvd.
Brann has said the district tried not to rule anything out when it began considering new layouts for Cabrillo and Dana. But Hollyglen residents quickly denounced a proposal to move the Cabrillo entrance to 134th, which would require vehicles to cruise through the neighborhood on Isis Avenue or Glasgow Place.
Adding to the locals' cynicism was a long-delayed traffic assessment that was finally released last month. Many felt the study was less than useful because it did not isolate the number of cars, trucks and SUVs that circle Cabrillo during peak hours. Board President Brian Meath said he and his colleagues considered conducting another study, but ultimately decided it wasn't worth pursuing.
"It's been frustrating to me that the environmental study process has taken as long as it has," Meath said. "I think that clearly has led to an increasing level of frustration in the community as well, in that some people mistook our lack of immediate action as being close-minded and an unwillingness to listen."
Meanwhile, even as the Cabrillo flap is settled, a minor debate still surrounds the rebuilding of Dana Middle School, which is scheduled to be completed before Cabrillo -- sometime by the fall of 2007. Wiseburn officials are thinking about flip-flopping the current Dana footprint by building the new structures on top of the current ball field. Under that plan, students could occupy their old school until the new one is built.
Parsons said residents to the east along Isis Avenue prefer to border green fields rather than classrooms and offices.
Brann, however, said there may be advantages to moving the playground away from homes, noting that sports teams and other recreation groups tend to use the fields -- and make noise -- in the evenings and on weekends.
Parsons disagreed.
"The neighbors actually like having the kids and the games and the noise," she said, "because it brings life to the community."
A final decision is expected to be made in May.