Manteca Unified is gearing up for what could be its biggest challenge in its 50-year history — a 20 percent increase in enrollment in the next four years.
And the response will be unlike any other in the past.
Instead of simply adding classrooms or building new schools, the school district is gearing up to tackle the growth challenge by involving administrators tasked with delivering the day-to-day education program in the district’s 30 schools in the process every step of the way.
That will allow Manteca Unified to pursue two options it never could do effectively during past growth spurts: Extensive expansion of permanent classrooms at existing schools as well as a more extensive deployment of precision busing.
It will also involve extensive conversations with the community.
Even though specific design work on Manteca High could be at least three years down the road, the first community meetings as early as January will center on the future of the downtown campus approaching the 100-year mark.
A redesigned Manteca High could become a campus that absorbs the lion’s share of high school enrollment growth expected from south of the 120 Bypass.
It could do so in tandem with an expansion of permanent classrooms at nearby Lincoln School that is now in the final stages of modernization as well as the construction of a new multipurpose room. Like many other modernizations being done through the $159 million voter approved Measure G bond, improvement are being made with the possibility campuses will have larger enrollment by adding additional permanent classrooms using funds from different sources. The work being done includes placing infrastructure such as water lines and buried electrical service that can be easily extended to areas on campus that the state has preliminary agreed can accommodate additional classrooms.
“It is much more cost effective to add classrooms to an existing school than to develop a new campus site complete with a multipurpose room and other support facilities,” noted Superintendent Jason Messer.
The Lincoln School-Manteca High combo approach now that modernization and safety upgrades are being done offers a unique possibility.
Messer noted parents moving into future homes may like the idea that their older children can go to Manteca High and that their younger siblings are going to school virtually next door. He noted it would also provide a stronger mixture of demographics and pump new life into schools that are in areas that are essentially built out.

Everything is being looked
at as input will help shape
district’s growth options
Messer repeatedly emphasizes that it is just one of many options being floated to deal with a wide array of financial challenges ranging from facilities to classroom programs as well as multiple growth issues.
The process is nowhere near the cement stage where the school board will decide what steps to take. Instead Messer wants all options explored so decisions can be made that have the best solutions for both existing and new students.
A number of financial realities are driving the process.
Even though voters approved a statewide school bond it is highly doubtful Manteca Unified will be able to snag any money from it for new construction. Most of it is going to modernization projects. If some of the bond funds do end up going for new construction, Manteca is competing with Los Angeles and other districts that can swallow up funding before the district is in the position to advance a plan for a new campus.
Most of the growth is now taking place south of the 120 Bypass in Manteca as well as west of Interstate 5 in Lathrop.
Rustic — the elementary campus site closest to where Manteca growth is occurring — is landlocked and has no water, sewer or storm drain system extended to it. The district would be on the hook for the infrastructure as well as the street. A new elementary campus without infrastructure extensions and a street is $25 million. Not having the improvements in makes Rustic too expensive.
Then there is the issue of a high school. The district has land on Tinnin Road. Not only does it lack sewer and water service but the potential price tag of developing a high school — $140 million — makes it a non-starter for the foreseeable future.

Students from new
homes south of Bypass
could attend school
in Lathrop or Stockton
School growth fees and Mello Roos taxes — if a community facilities district is in place — covers only two thirds of the cost needed to house students.
Those funds could be used to add on to Manteca High or Sierra High to provide high school space for growth. Additions to Sierra High would be fairly straight forward involving traditional classroom wings. At Manteca High it could involve going up adding multiple story buildings to the campus.
Regardless of what route Manteca Unified ends up taking, it doesn’t have a lot of time before it is impacted.
Manteca Unified as of this month is at 94 percent capacity with a few students shy of 24,000 students. That means there is room for just 1,500 more students. Based on current trends almost all of that capacity will disappear numerically next year.
Numerically because growth never matches up with space available at various grade levels. District schools, as an example, could have space available overall in the first, third and seventh grades but not at second and fifth grade levels if new homes, resales, or renter changes generate large number of students at that level.
Manteca Unified intends to bus new students to available spaces at their classroom level. That could mean a family of a new home south of the 120 Bypass that has a student that is at a grade level where no available space is available for them at a nearby school could be bused to Lathrop or a Weston Ranch campus in Stockton.
The district is preparing to issue letters to several developers that haven’t stepped up to make it possible for Manteca Unified to build classroom space closure to their new homes that is exactly what may happen.
“We intend to communicate to make sure all parents — those who already have students in Manteca Unified schools and those that will move here in the future — understand the situation,” Messer said.
At the same time education services will be plugged in every step of the way.
“Growth is more than just needing space,” Messer said.
He noted students need teachers, books, and devices.
The district is closely tracking where all new students are coming from by placing dots on large maps with attendance areas that are displayed next to maps that shows the status of new subdivisions as well as ultimate zoning.
“In some areas the new dots are being offset by the loss of (net) students (through graduation),” Messer said.
The district is preparing to hire a facilities planner that they expect to have sharp nuts and bolts skills but even better people skills so everything the district does is effectively communicated to developers, other government agencies, educators, parents, and the community.