WPUSD's Village 1 gets redistricted to other schools instead of getting its own

Due to a lack of funding, Village 1 students will be reassigned to other Western Placer Unified School District campuses instead of getting new schools in the area in a unanimous vote at the Nov. 11 board meeting. The northern portion of Village 1 students are now assigned to Carlin C. Coppin Elementary. Students south of Highway 193 are now assigned to Sheridan Elementary. Village 1 is estimated to be home to 2,215 students. Village 1 has several landowners, which has created a challenge for WPUSD to develop school funding solutions. WPUSD Superintendent Kerry Callahan explained the challenge is that with multiple developers involved, no single developer has enough students in their homes to warrant creating a school. "Collectively, they're going to yield one and a half to two elementary schools. But on their own, with the land each individual developer or landowner has doesn't generate enough kids to warrant a school," Callahan explained. "They're apparently struggling as a group to come to agreements on other aspects related to the Village 1 plan and the school." According to the estimated budget set by WPUSD, it costs $205,758,430 to build a new elementary, middle and high school. It costs $176,039,637 to build a TK-8 and high school. The district has estimated fee collections to be $57,331,264 and estimated state funding $65,842,698, which creates a funding shortfall of $82,584,468. Looking at the numbers, their main concern in Village 1 is creating an elementary school for the 1,323 young students living there. Elementary schools in the district aim to host 800 students. Village 1 would need 1.65 elementary schools to satisfy the need in the area. An elementary school is estimated to cost $115,765,213, which gives WPUSD a shortfall for $21,389,081. A TK-8 school in the district aims to host 1,400 students, which Village 1 would need 1.28 of to host the students in the area. To build a TK-8 school, the estimated cost is $128,325,393 which gives WPUSD a shortfall for $29,930,003. WPUSD has an area within Village 1 zoned off for a proposed elementary site but cannot find a builder to help the district afford it. This comes at a difficult time for WPUSD, where Villages 5 and 7 have been successful in securing elementary schools. "Village 1 is really going to be at an extreme disadvantage in comparison to the other two villages that are going to be building homes around the same time," Callahan explained. "We absolutely would love to be able to build schools in Village 1 to serve the neighborhood but absent the appropriate dollars that we need to be able to make that happen, then we have no other choice but to provide space at existing facilities where there's room." Cathy Dominico, a financial advisor for the school district, said developers in the area will be paying statutory developer fees which will be used for upgrades and expansions of existing facilities to accommodate Village 1 students. She explained it's less expensive to add to an existing facility than to build a new one. The main problem is the existing facilities aren't close to Village 1 and will require students to take buses. "You're picturing a kindergartner, a 5-year-old, getting on a bus or their parents having to drive them 20 minutes to get to elementary school. That's not a great situation and the district doesn't really want that. We just don't have a choice," Dominico said. The school board will discuss in the spring what to do with the estimated 474 middle school students in Village 1.