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| Tracy Press, Friday, June 6, 2003 |
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| MATH LESSON |
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Because of a pickup in the construction pace in Mountain House, officials in the Lammersville Elementary School District might be looking at a vote on becoming a separate kindergarten through high school district as earl as November, but more likely not until 2004.
Lammersville Superintendent Bill Lebo said that all of the requirements set by the state to unify are met except one — namely, having 1,501 students.
“Basically, what’s happening now is we are waiting to see how many kids will be generated out of the Wicklund neighborhood,” Lebo said. “There’s the possibility of a ballot measure in November, but if we don’t have or are not approaching 1,500 in November, we are going to have to postpone unification.”
Lammersville School, the district’s only school, has around 300 students enrolled, Lebo estimate that the district sends about 150 students to high school in Tracy Unified, usually West High School. That gives the district about 450 students.
The Wicklund neighborhood, called Neighborhood F in the Mountain House master plan, is planned to have almost 1,000 homes. The neighborhood is under construction now, and sales are brisk.
What Lebo is waiting for is the student generation rate. This is a number created by averaging the number of students coming from each house in the development. Lebo is working with a historical figure of 0.6 school-age children per home.
That estimate works out to around 600 students from Wicklund alone. But the estimate may be off because the new homes could generate students at a different rate. Generation rates in Tracy Unified, for example, are generally 0.7 students per home.
The San Joaquin County Planning Commission issued 2,500 additional building permits last month to Mountain House’s developer, Trimark Communities Inc. These permits are for construction of two neighborhoods adjoining Wicklund, Neighborhoods E and G.
When those are built, there will be more than 3,400 homes in Mountain House, which would assuredly get Lammersville over the unification hump, meaning a unification vote is “most likely” Lebo said, not until November 2004.
Until unification happens, though, Tracy Unified School District is still charged with building Mountain House’s high school. District trustees began the process for building that high school at their board meeting this week, selecting trustees Gregg Crandall and Joan Feller to choose an architect for the school and begin discussions with officials from Lammersville and Trimark.
The question before school officials in both districts is who’s responsible for building and running that high school, especially if Lammersville unifies sooner than initially planned.
TUSD facilities development director Sherry Gongaware said that the district had to move forward with the high school project because the district has to provide services for those students.
“We’ve been meeting with the developer, and they’ve more or less speeded up their housing schedule,” Gongaware said. “That means more students, so we decided that it was time to begin working on this high school.”
For the dozen elementary schools planned in Mountain House, Trimark developer Eric Teed-Bose said that Trimark will lend the district the initial funding. The district is then responsible for collecting as much state construction funding as possible to reimburse Trimark and covering any leftover through Mello-Roos taxes.
Teed-Bose said that the high school would be funded differently. Trimark will pay the full cost of the high school but with a staged approach. As high school enrollment from Mountain House grows, exceeding specific enrollment numbers triggers one-time payments from Trimark to the Tracy Unified School District. Teed-Bose said that the first of these payments has already been made for portable classrooms on the West High School campus.
Lammersville unifying poses a little problem for Trimark.
“This is really an issue between the two school districts,” Teed-Bose said. “If Lammersville unifies, they assume Tracy Unified’s position in that agreement. The terms don’t change, the times don’t change, and that agreement stands. From Trimark’s perspective, we’re going to fulfill our end of the agreement and work with whoever it ends up being with.”
Feller said that she has not yet met with Lammersville. While Lammersville’s unification is a near certainty, she said she’s not so sure it will be so soon.
“They’re using a more aggressive projection than ours,” Feller said. “What we’re looking at is the number of students, when they’re coming and when they unify.”
Feller said that there might be anomalies in the generation figures at Mountain House, which will not be revealed until the students arrive. For example, the new residents might be older couples with high school-age children or no children. Or, the new residents might only be planning families or have infants. Either scenario has happened in Tracy Unified and could affect everyone’s plans.
Board president Bill Swenson said he agrees.
“Yes, it will eventually be their school,” Swenson said. “I think it’s just prudent to get the architect and get started now.”
READY TO GROW: Construction workers with HS Steel of Sacramento (top) install beams on the roof of a classroom complex at Wicklund School in Mountain House. Workers (above) work on parts of Wicklund School, which will be the first school built as part of the planned community of Mountain House. |
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