The newest elementary school campus opened Wednesday as part of the River Islands Academies family of schools.

River Islands Tech Academy — founded in 2013 and located in campus with portable buildings near the River Islands town center — moved to the new permanent campus past River Islands at the end of Branton Avenue in the 15,001-home planned community.

In its place, the SPARK Academy has opened as the charter school organization’s fourth elementary campus.

The new SPARK Academy will eventually be relocated given the campus comprised of portables will eventually be removed to allow for the build out of the town center.

The other two River Islands Academies elementary schools are the STEAM Academy and EPIC Academy.

River Islands High has an enrollment of 850 students. The academies have an overall enrollment of 3,500.

That compares to Ripon Unified with 3,277 students overall and 1,027 enrolled at Ripon High.

Ripon Unified is a traditional public school system while River Islands Academies is charted under the Banta Unified School District.

River Islands High stopped being a charter school on July 1.

But for all practical purposes nothing has changed — not the teaching staff, not the administration, not the curriculum, and not the standards.

What changed is it is no longer run by River Islands Academies under the purview of the Banta Unified School District.

Instead, it is being run by the Banta Unified School District.

The change is the result of a deadline in the California Education Code that a requires a district within five years of being unified to establish schools to serve all K-12 grades.

Banta School District was a one-campus elementary school with 100 students when voters approved unification five years ago. In order to stay unified, Banta must have a comprehensive high school within five years.

The four elementary schools are still operated by River Islands Academies with its charter through Banta Unified.

It should be noted all Banta School students that are of high school age have been — and will continue — going to River Islands.

Four of the five Banta Unified board trustees are elected from River Islands.

River Islands explored other options including going with Manteca Unified or Tracy Unified and even building another high school campus.

The bottom line was the academies have a strong working relationship with Banta Unified with their goals and philosophies for River Islands aligned with the charter schools..

Work is continuing on the first phase of the high school campus designed to accommodate 900 students. The campus’ ultimate buildout design is for 1,800 students.

To contact Dennis Wyatt, email dwyatt@mantecabulletin.com