Manteca Unified has grown in enrollment by an average of 949 students during the last four years.

To give you a perspective of what that means — and challenges the MUSD is dealing with — that’s:

*a 16.8 percent growth in four years or 3,779 students for MUSD compared to a 7 percent growth rate for the City of Manteca during the same time period.

*a student growth number that exceeded the overall enrollment of Ripon Unified, that ended the last school year at 3,297 students.

*the equivalent of MUSD generating enough new students to fill four elementary schools in four years if all of them were TK-8 students instead of including a mixture of high school students.

Manteca’s enrollment is now in excess of 25,700 students.

The district’s strong growth puts MUSD in a small minority of the 1,015 public school districts in California.

Most are either stagnant, in declining enrollment, or growth is less than one percent.

Manteca Unified has two of the five fastest growing cities in California within its 110.96 square miles, Manteca and Lathrop.

Keep in mind the fastest growing part of Lathrop — River Islands south of the San Joaquin River — is within the Banta Unified School District.

The other large concentration of population in the district is Weston Ranch in south Stockton that is experiencing a decrease in school enrollment.

The advent of younger families from the Bay Area dominating the Manteca-Lathrop resale market has translated into a huge surge in enrollment as more students are enrolled in transitional kindergarten than ever before.

“It was like adding an entire new grade level this year,” Assistant Superintendent Victoria Brunn said earlier this month of the high enrollment in TK that is open to all but not mandated.

That is on top of the largest freshman class ever districtwide with Manteca High leading the way with an excess of 500 freshmen among the five MUSD comprehensive high schools. That said, Weston Ranch High has declined in enrollment.

Enrollment in the classes of high schools within the city limits  of Manteca are 1,800 for Manteca, 1,759 for Sierra, and 1,598 for East Union.

All three Manteca campuses have a targeted top enrollment capacity of 2,200 students based on academic programming.

That reflects the ideal not-to-exceed enrollment for educating students.

It doesn’t preclude adding portables or increasing class sizes if need be.

Why enrollment

trends matter

Why the numbers matter  when it comes to how Manteca Unified operates comes down to three things:

*Academics

*Facilities

*Funding

Brunn noted all three need to be addressed keeping growth in mind to assure the district fulfills its commitment to help make sure students have a safe environment where quality education establishes the foundation for lifelong education.

That means the district must have a system in place that effectively addresses the educational needs of individual students.

To make sure education stays the top priority as the district grows, one of the biggest challenges is ensuring every student has the support and resources they need to succeed.

Brunn noted the district continually adapts instructional strategies to meet individual needs, improve learning outcomes, and close achievement gaps. Growth may change the scale, but the district works to keep focus in academic achievement constant.

To do so, requires expanding teaching and support staff and making sure technology and resources give fair access to all students regardless of social-economic backgrounds.

Making sure there are adequate facilities are a must.

Bond measures A, G and M were designed to enable the district to modernize and increase the security of existing facilities. At the same time, space was analyzed and repurposed through physical modifications to maximize existing square footage and to tailor space to today’s learning challenges.

The foundation of making sure facilities are available as the district grows is done by paying close attention to demographics and growth trends with annual tweaking at the board level on how facilities are used and what is needed going forward.

Growth was anticipated with a plan in place.

That said, the growth pace has exceeded projections.

It underlines that market forces and development timelines are not controlled by the district.

Funding, which is in the hands of Sacramento and to a much lesser degree Washington, D.C.,  is a key factor in the district’s ability to serve current students as well as enrollment growth.

The funding for day-to-day instruction is based on average daily attendance, or ADA, and not actual enrollment.

That means as students growth occurs, the district is funded based only for a particular day — usually in October — when the state takes an attendance snapshot.

Because Manteca Unified enrollment continues to grow throughout the year, the chances of a funding gap for resources that are needed and what MUSD receives are great.

It is another reason why years ago the school board emphasized having a fairly robust cash flow position as well as budgeting three years out.

Policy changes in Sacramento, though, can be wild cards for funding local schools.

To contact Dennis Wyatt, email dwyatt@mantecabulletin.com