It’s the $60 million question.

And its asked occasionally at Manteca City Council meetings by newer residents during public comments.The question: Where are all the “new” schools to accommodate growth?

It’s a question often posed by residents in high growth neighborhoods where parents may be seeing their students bused to other campuses due to grade level overcrowding.

The short answer is Manteca Unified already has schools in place that are being reconfigured and expanded to handle more students.

That’s because recently completed 1,000-student elementary campuses — once land costs,  infrastructure and facility construction are all taken into account—  cost $60 million to build.

And based on the cost pf the River Islands High that is now under construction, a secondary campus for 1,800 students is coming in at $180 million.

It should also be noted student growth isn’t linear across grade levels. This year, as an example, there was a sudden surge in seventh through 12th grade enrollment. That was due to the buyers of new Manteca homes that have soared past the $600,000 mark are primarily more established families from the Bay Area.

The advantages of adding classroom space at existing campuses are as follows.

*It is quicker. It can take a minimum of five years to go from making a decision to building a new elementary school. The process includes  designing the school, obtaining state approval of plans that takes two years, obtaining land, and constructing the campus.

*It is more cost effective. A new campus requires not just the purchase of land but expensive infrastructure, and high dollar support facilities such as a multi-purpose room, library, parking lot and such.

*It is more flexible. By adding to existing campuses that are fairly well spaced out, it avoids Manteca committing to a campus that appeared to be in the right place when the decision was made to build but as actual growth occurs ends up being in the wrong place. 

The district — which includes California’s fastest growing city in Lathrop and its third fastest growing city in Manteca — in the past decade devised a facilities strategy based on changing realities.

*Growth fees collected on building permits and Mello Roos taxes do not on their own come close to covering the cost of new classroom construction needed to accommodate growth.

*Statewide bond elections for new schools — that traditionally bridge the balance when coupled with local bonds — are becoming rare as urban coastal areas where the bulk of the population is located are experiencing less or no growth.

*Older neighborhoods have seen increased student population as younger families purchase resales as starter homes.

*State mandated “pull-out” programs such as reading recovery that are capped often at 12 students over the years had taken over classrooms  built to accommodate 30 students.

*Based on shifting needs over the years there was space at campuses that could be repurposed as classrooms or for pull-out programs.

*Given the cost of building support facilities such as multipurpose rooms, it is more cost effective to add clusters of classrooms.

*Elementary campuses of up to  1,100 students could be created without triggering issues that could undermine the effectiveness of programs compared to the  750 to 800 student campuses that were in place.

*High schools could be expanded and reconfigured to take up to 2,200 students  from the previous 1,750 design capacity in such a manner it could allow expansion of education offerings without creating undo management issue.

Focusing on using campuses already in place to handle growth doesn’t preclude additional elementary schools from being built. It’s just that the district wants to maximize what they have in place by augmenting campuses where possible to make sure they can afford to house new students.

Not city’s responsibility

To build new schools

It is the responsibility of the Manteca Unified School District and not the city to provide school facilities. That said, the city has the ability to ease the impact the growth they are allowing has on schools by applying pressure to developers to join Mello-Roos districts that help pay  part of the tab for new classroom space. The district cannot legally impose such a requirement under state law.

Between growth fees collected when building permits are issued and Mello Roos assessments, it is far short of the money needed to build additional classroom space demands that new housing creates.

That leaves state bond matching funds and local bond measures.

But when it comes to facilities for schools, there are two needs in a high growth district like Manteca Unified. The obvious is more space to accommodate more growth. The other is existing facilities as  they age need to be upgraded and renovated.

Manteca has three outstanding bond measures.

*The $66 million Measure M bond passed in 2004 that has already been spent. It went primarily for new construction and helped build Lathrop High and several elementary campuses in Lathrop.

*The $159 million Measure G bond passed in 2014 that has been mostly spent. It was for additional facilities such as multipurpose rooms at elementary schools and upgrades of existing space.

*The $260 million Measure A bond approved in 2020. It is going toward renovation endeavors, addressing health and safety concerns, and replacing aging facilities that aren’t cost effective to upgrade for modern education programming.

Measures  G and A were not authorized for new construction to accommodate growth.

They do, however, provide funding for the bulk of the replacement for inadequate and aging support facilities such as the old cafeteria at Lincoln school that was replaced with a larger and more functional multi-purpose room.

The older elementary campuses that had such upgrades qualified for matching funds from the state to the tune of more than  $20 million so far.

The old cafeteria at Lincoln School was converted to education space.

Replacement infrastructure was stubbed in a manner that it will easily allow the addition of more classrooms in the future to help accommodate growth.

Those classrooms will be paid for primarily with CFD taxes and growth fees.

24,616 students & counting

 There are now 24,616 students in the district.

Manteca Unified student housing needs today are being hit with a double whammy.

When it comes to housing students, districts up and down California now have to provide space for state-mandated traditional kindergarten (TK). The requirement is expected to increase the number of students by an additional 900 plus over the next four years by the time full implementation of TK occurs in 2025-2026.

That means without a net gain of families in the district from growth, enrollment will likely reach 25,500 by late 2026.

Add in the current growth rate thanks to Manteca and Lathrop being among the top five fastest growing cities in California and the number of new students generated during the past two school years, MUSD could be at 26,700 students by the end of 2026.

If that happens Manteca Unified enrollment will have increased by roughly 13 percent since the 2020-2021 school year when enrollment was at 23,560.

That translates into housing roughly 2,000 more students.

To contact Dennis Wyatt, email dwyatt@mantecabulletin.com