Lathrop west of Interstate 5 is the second fastest growing area in the Manteca Unified School District behind neighborhoods south of the 120 Bypass in Manteca.
And despite the limited ability to raise construction money through community facility districts as the City of Lathrop opted to allow developers to reduce their out-of-pocket of financing infrastructure such as sewer and water line as well as streets via the CFD mechanism, the district has the ability to accommodate 997 more elementary students and 466 more high school students based on program capacity.
Program capacity reflects the maximum optimum students based on educational programming. While schools can physically accommodate higher numbers it would require exceeding enrollment thresholds deemed ideal for the most effective education setting,
The issue of whether Lathrop is running out of school space was raised recently by those who believe the district needs to build another elementary school in the community.
Some of the concern was triggered by the need to bus four kindergartens in the Widmer School attendance area to Lathrop Elementary due to class capacity.
Community Outreach Director Victoria Brunn notes not all school enrollment comes in equal numbers at all grade levels. As such the number of classes at various grade levels at elementary schools can shift from year to year.
If demand justifies it, additional teachers are added. She noted students that are sent to other schools have the option of returning to their home school when capacity is available.
It is a strategy Manteca Unified employs throughout the district. If it is a persistent problem it could trigger attendance boundary adjustments.
As it now stands based on program capacity Widmer School can accommodate 438 more students, Lathrop Elementary 393 more students, and Mossdale 166 more students.
Those combined numbers are 474 higher than they would be without the construction of school resource centers.
Most schools in California, including Manteca Unified, were designed and built when lower teacher to student ratio pullout programs for more intensified learning was still in its infancy.
The pullout programs include intervention, reading resource, speech, bilingual aides, psychologist, occupational therapists, after school programs, and music.
Program implementation varies at each campus as it is depends on the specific education needs of a school’s population.
Such programs have space needs based on smaller class sizes that require roughly 40 percent less space than an average classroom of 960 square feet.
Current construction for new school classrooms is roughly $450 per square foot. By building separate resource centers five 960 square foot classrooms are freed up. And if there is existing space such as a former library or an old multipurpose room that can be remodeled the cost associated with modernizing an existing footprint is estimated at $250 per square foot.
As for Lathrop High it has a program capacity of 1,852 students versus an actual enrollment of 1,658.
In August 2021 there were eight additional classrooms placed at the campus for the Career Training Education (CTE) innovation program formerly known as be.tech.
That increases the capacity to 2,124.
For that to happen, though, the CTE programs would have to be relocated to elsewhere in the district. The CTE programs at Lathrop draw students from other district high schools to access them.
The district is planning on all high schools in the district— East Union, Manteca, Sierra, Weston Ranch, and Lathrop — to ultimately have program capabilities at around 2,200.
The decision was based on the optimum program offerings and still keeping the learning environment manageable.
It also reflects school funding realities that also prompted the move to elementary school resource centers.
Since the $66 million Measure M bond passed in 2004 that allowed the district to augment state funding to build Lathrop High and Mossdale School, Sacramento has drastically reduced state assistance to build new school campuses.
That means districts have to rely heavily on growth fees and community facilities districts that, by themselves, fall significantly short of the funding needed.
It is worse in Lathrop where city leaders accommodated developers to assist with their infrastructure costs that effectively maxed out the ability to form community facilities districts in some new neighborhoods for school construction.
A new elementary campus can cost $30 million for 800 students. As far as high schools go, River Islands is getting ready to break ground on a high school for 800 students that will cost $140 million.
To contact Dennis Wyatt, email dwyatt@mantecabulletin.com
