LATHROP - The newest – and arguably the most technologically advanced – new school in the South County is opening in August 2013 as a charter school.

Banta School District is in the final phase of securing state approval for a kindergarten through 12th grade charter school that will open in a $25 million campus now being built at River Islands at Lathrop.

Initially, it will open as a kindergarten through eighth grade campus and add additional classes in subsequent years.

Cambay Group is picking up the local match of $12.5 million that allow Banta to secure $12.5 million in state bond funding. The investors also are footing the bill for $5 million worth of infrastructure - streets, sidewalks, sewer, and water - to serve the campus that is part of the firm’s 11,000-home planned River Island at Lathrop community on Stewart Tract in Southwest Lathrop.

River Islands Project Manager Susan Dell’Osso noted investors don’t expect to start building homes for one to three years. They are waiting for the housing recovery to start in earnest. No homes on River Island are expected to be completed by the time the new school opens.

The campus initially will accommodate up to 750 students. The targeted charter school student body are students in the Tracy, Lathrop, and Manteca area. The campus ultimately will consist of two schools serving 1,500 students in a kindergarten through fifth grade configuration and a sixth through eighth grade facility.

The school has been designed to accommodate the latest teaching technology. When it opens, students will have computer tablets instead of books.

River Islands ultimately will have six elementary schools, two middle schools, and one high school. The elementary schools will be part of the Banta School District that currently has one campus with 300 students located east of Tracy.

River Islands is a project that is now 22 years in the making. It originally started out as Gold Rush City. It became known as River Islands in 2001 when Cambay bought all 4,800 acres.

Cambay Group’s long-term commitment is legendary. Their San Ramon project of 10,000 homes on 5,000 acres took 17 years from the time of inception to the first home being built.