Ripon Unified has 26 less students than it did five years ago.

And you can thank housing growth in the City of Manteca for the drop-off not being steeper.

Students from southeast Manteca neighborhoods that are within the Ripon Unified attendance boundaries have softened the pitfalls of declining enrollment that has been plaguing many school districts throughout California.

Many districts are looking at massive layoffs and serious budget cuts. Ripon Unified is not.

Why staying stable as Ripon Unified has basically done or growing enrollment is critical for a district’s financial well-being in California is simple.

Less students translates into less average daily attendance or ADA.

Less ADA means less money from the state that provides more than 85 percent of the general fund budget.

On the surface, one might think you simply pare back employees.

It’s not that simple.

There are set ratios of students per teachers.

That would make you believe if you have funding for 30 — give or take — less students, it is simply a matter of letting one teacher go.

If it were that simple.

There are 10 grade levels between transitional kindergarten and eighth grade.

If 25 of those 30 students are lost from the TK-8 grade level, rest assured they will be spread across all 10 grade levels.

It gets dicier at the high school level where teachers are generally credentialed in special subjects. A loss of five students when it comes to funding can’t easily be absorbed by a reduction in staff.

The bottom line is student enrollment growth — or decline — never occurs in neat 30 packs of students at one specific grade level.

That is why trying to adjust for declining enrollment requires navigating various variables that could create negative impacts when it comes to education.

The students sent Ripon’s way by Manteca’s growth has helped avoid the need for unpleasant conversations and decisions

Keeping in mind population is different than school-age students generated by households, the City of Ripon had 16,013 residents based on the Census in 2020.

As of Jan. 1, 2026 based on California Department of Finance estimates, there were 15,873 residents in the City of Ripon.

The Manteca segment of the district has helped largely offset the impacts of Ripon population decline per se and/or an aging community.

Ripon home construction is picking up.

That is good or bad depending upon what future one wants to see for Ripon.

The Ripon Unified schools facilities master plan projects a possible gain of 837 students over the next five years to increase the district’s current 3,277 enrollment to 4,114 by the 2030-2031 school year.

Most of that gain will be from new homes in Manteca.

The good news is the master plan shows existing Ripon schools have the space to accommodate what would be roughly a 20 percent surge in student enrollment.

There is also another upside.

If the Ripon Unified board goes for a school modernization bond this year that passage is needed to secure state funds and voters approve it, the building of new homes in Manteca will help dilute whatever the projected cost per $100,000 in assessed property the bond will cost to repay.

There will come a time when a Ripon Unified elementary campus will need to be built in the City of Manteca. In today’s dollars, that can easily exceed $70 million.

But there is a wild card.

The odds are growing with Manteca shifting its efforts to develop a business park in the northern area of the city near Roth Road, the chances of one being developed as originally planned along Austin Road will become almost nil.

That will likely lead to more homes eventually being built on land already annexed to Manteca that is also within the Ripon Unified School District.

While now plans for specific tract homes developments have been submitted for the 1,080-acre Austin Road project, there are others in Manteca that are in RUSD jurisdiction that are being processed and lined up to be annexed.

It includes the 737-unit Hat Ranch and two projects to the south of that endeavor being pursued by national builders for another 503 homes.

Given this is Manteca we’re talking about, rest assured more will be lining up in the coming years.

Ripon Unified, even if it had the desire to, could ill afford trying to transfer part of their district within the City of Manteca boundaries to Manteca Unified.

That said, what is coming down the pike along the Austin Road corridor now that the new Austin Road interchange is in place could well end up having seismic implications for Ripon Unified.

And that can be good, or it can be bad, spending upon one’s perspective.