After receiving the best education possible in the PVSD, we set our kids adrift into what many feel is a substandard school run by the Oxnard Union High School District. Just from Las Colinas Intermediate, a school where all students should go on to Camarillo High, one-third of the graduating class this year fled to other districts.

Ms. Lloyd is living in the past. Camarillo High hasn’t been a California Distinguished School since 1996, nor a National Blue Ribbon School since 1998. Almost every year, the Pleasant Valley School District is rewarded with one of its schools attaining the California Distinguished School status.

Camarillo High School is an island that needs to be attached to the mainland here. It makes sense that we have one district governing and providing for our students; if we were to unify the K–12 grades, there would be a Camarillo Board of Trustees and a continuity of academic programs.

Ask the students if they would like an International Baccalaureate program, or academy programs such as those offered by Newbury Park, Westlake and Moorpark high schools. Ask them if they would prefer to attend a cleaner, safer, and more well-managed school.

Proponents like myself are anxious to bring unification to fruition quickly because additional state funding is available to a unified district, which would mean an increase of more than $5 million yearly for Camarillo students. Supporters of unification (latest poll shows 90 percent) do not expect miracles overnight, but we are positive we can run the school better.

Who is responsible for the mediocrity, indeed!

— Peg Hicks-Moore, Camarillo