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GROWTH CHANGES BOUNDARIES
4 elementary schools impacted by Manteca Unified decision
Lincoln tour
Some students south of the 120 Bypass will be bused to Lincoln School. \ - photo by Bulletin fie photos
Growth has forced the Manteca Unified School District board to readjust attendance boundaries for Nile Garden, Veritas, Brock Elliott, and Lincoln elementary schools.
With the board’s approval Tuesday night, the district’s proposal to amend attendance boundaries in order to accommodate an influx of students from expected growth to neighborhood schools is now going to be implemented. It will expand the attendance areas for some schools while shrinking others as a way to balance the expected increase in pupils over the coming decade.
Despite the board approval, the changes won’t go into effect until the fall of 2019.
The concept, born out of the district’s Growth Steering Committee – a cooperative effort between the Superintendent, a board trustee, senior district administration as well as facilities and operations – took a wide range of data into consideration including school enrollment data, a demographic growth study, facility capacity, school feeder patterns, federal, state or court mandates, student safety, geographic features of the district including traffic patterns, educational programming, neighborhood identity and reducing split-schools attendance into high school in order to facilitate the scenario that would best serve the coming changes.
Discussions about constructing new elementary schools in the areas that will be most affected by growth were held last year by the board, but the cost associated with constructing a new facility in some of the more rural areas not currently served by city services made that avenue cost-prohibitive – prompting the board to instead look at increasing capacity at existing elementary school sites and tailoring modernization upgrades to facilitate the expanded student bodies.
In order to minimize the impact on families that are currently enrolled in the district, the proposal includes a “grandfathering” clause that allows all active Manteca Unified students and their siblings to remain at their current school of attendance. Those wishing to take advantage of the clause will be issued a priority transfer application this fall to save the seat of their student when the approved plan goes into place at the start of the 2019/20 school year.
Some of the proposed boundaries include:
uVeritas Elementary School – The boundaries will extend from McKinley Avenue in the west across to Main Street to the east with State Route 120 serving as the northern border and Woodward Avenue the southern border.
uBrock Elliott – The boundaries will extend from W. Yosemite Avenue in the north to State Route 120 to the south, and from South Airport Way to the west across to Union Road to the east.
uLincoln Elementary School – Extending the existing school boundaries south of the Highway 120 Bypass from Main Street to the west to Moffat Boulevard to the east along Atherton Drive to the south – with one spur extending south of Atherton Drive near Main Street.
uNile Garden Elementary School – Extending the existing boundaries to include everything west of Airport way between Yosemite Avenue to the north and State Route 120 to the south, including a section of land west of McKinley Avenue as it extends south of the Highway 120 Bypass to the intersection of Woodward Avenue, and everything south of Woodward Avenue up to the Manteca High School attendance boundaries.
Another element of the proposal will alter the current “no bussing” zone for Lincoln Elementary School students who live south of the Highway 120 Bypass. While some of the new pockets of development that will be served by Lincoln will fall within the current 1.25-mile radius, the board approved a provision that will allow that radius to terminate at the highway so that all students attending that school site and living on the opposite side will be eligible for bussing – eliminating the need for students to walk across the Main Street overcrossing.
For a more detailed map of the attendance areas that allows users to zoom in to street level, visit www.mantecausd.net/boundary – all other maps can be found by searching the district’s website.

To contact reporter Jason Campbell email jcampbell@mantecabulletin.com or call 209.249.3544.