Carlsbad panel to consider private school plan

North County Times – Escondido,CA,USA
… Mullady said. The campus is expected to serve students in
Encinitas and Rancho Santa Fe as well as Carlsbad and San Marcos.
School …

CARLSBAD — A proposal to put a nearly 500-student, private secondary school in eastern Carlsbad will go before the city’s Planning Commission tonight.

The meeting is set for 6 p.m. at City Hall, 1200 Carlsbad Village Drive.

Only well south or north of Carlsbad — in communities such as La Jolla and Newport Beach — can people find a school similar to what’s planned for a 7.3-acre site along Carlsbad’s El Fuerte Street, school leader Eileen Mullady said Tuesday.

“If you take out the Catholic, (other) Christian and Jewish schools out of the mix, then you’ve only got the Army Navy Academy,” Mullady said as she described what other private high school and middle school options are available in coastal North County.

The Pacific Ridge School, which is proposed to open in September, won’t offer religious instruction. Its focus is on college-prep courses, similar to programs at elite schools such as La Jolla Country Day School.

Carlsbad’s Planning Department has received several letters supporting the project, including one from the Carlsbad Chamber of Commerce.

However, city staff members have talked with several neighbors who have concerns about potential traffic and noise, city Assistant Planner Corey Funk said Tuesday.

Because of those concerns, the city will be stressing that school traffic stay on El Fuerte and not use other roads within the Bressi Ranch development, Funk said.

Mullady said the site, which school officials purchased from the Episcopal Diocese of San Diego, is perfect for the school’s needs.

The location just south of Palomar Airport Road near the eastern city limits “allows us to draw students from Carlsbad and all of the neighboring communities,” she said.

Plans initially call for the proposed school campus to house 76 students — seventh- and ninth-graders only this fall — in temporary portable classrooms. Enrollment is expected to grow to 480 students other grades are admitted and permanent classrooms are constructed, Mullady said.

School officials already have the $7.5 million they need for start-up expenses; now they’re embarking on a campaign to collect the money for permanent buildings, she added.

Begun through the efforts of several groups of parents, the school’s formation was announced in January 2005. The school purchased the Carlsbad site in spring 2006, Mullady said.

The campus is expected to serve students in Encinitas and Rancho Santa Fe as well as Carlsbad and San Marcos.

School officials already have the $7.5 million they need for start-up expenses, now they’re embarking on a campaign to collect $5 million for permanent buildings, she added.

The school project was initially begun by several groups of parents within the school’s proposed service area, which is expected to include Encinitas and Rancho Santa Fe as well as Carlsbad and San Marcos.

Mullady, who came to the project after 10 years with a private school in New York state, has a doctorate from Columbia University and has worked there as well as at Princeton University.

Tuition at the proposed school won’t come cheap — the 2007-08 school year tuition rate is $19,000. For that price, students receive instruction in classes with 15 or fewer classmates. They also will engage in intensive projects, including re-creations of 14th-century meals, according to the school’s Web site.

Plans call for the ninth-graders to take a 17-day trip to China’s Yangtze River area at the end of the school year as part of a unit on water issues, the Web site notes.

During tonight’s Planning Commission hearing, commissioners will discuss whether to issue a conditional use permit for the project and whether to amend various city planning documents. For agenda information, visit http://www.carlsbadca.gov/chall/chplan.html.