Lodi school board discusses updates to Serna school move

During its Tuesday-night meeting at the James Areida Education Support Center, the Lodi Unified School District Board of Education discussed updates to the proposal to relocate Joe Serna Jr. Charter School in Lodi to Houston Elementary School in Acampo, with both schools sharing the same campus beginning in the 2019-20 school year.

Leonard Kahn, the district’s chief business officer, said that as of May 25, 2018, Serna has 374 students enrolled with an available capacity of 124 while Houston has an enrollment of 149 with an available capacity of 92.

Victor Elementary and Lockeford Elementary were two other schools the district considered transferring Serna students to, Kahn said, and Victor currently has an enrollment of 146 students with an available capacity of 41 while Lockeford has an enrollment of 498 students with an available capacity of 31.

A combined 1,225 students are predicted to be enrolled all four schools and a total of 288 openings at all schools, Kahn said.

“While we have a lot of capacity at these four sites, the bulk of those open seats are going to be at the Houston Site

To accommodate approximately 60 new seventh- and eighth-grade students from Serna, three portable classrooms would need to be added to Houston’s campus, Kahn said, along with approximately two more bathrooms and a water tank for fire response that could cost “in the high$800,000s.”

Four Houston students with special needs would also need to be relocated to a different site, Kahn said, if sixth-grade enrollment at Houston does not increase by the 2019-20 school year.

Houston teacher Doug Zuehlke said he knows of four classrooms that will be vacant during the 2018-19 school year, although that might change as multiple classes are being reorganized that year.

“On a personal note, I hope the board realizes that Houston is a middle school, so we don’t have a seventh-grade teacher the students are with all day,” Zuehlke said. “That would certainly have to be taken into consideration when it comes to restructuring the classrooms.”

Stephanie Hammond, a member of Serna’s parentteacher association, said that moving Serna seventh- and eighth-graders to Houston during the 2018-19 school year would be harmful to a student mentor program at Serna, regardless of whether it would save money on moving portable classrooms.

“The seventh- and eighthgraders mentor the kindergartners, and it’s really great for them to have that role and have little kids looking up to them,” Hammond said.

School board president George Neely reminded the board and district staff that they will likely have to organize field trips for Serna teachers to inspect the Houston campus, help them move and possibly pay teachers for the extra days that process will take.

“This can either go very smoothly, or it can be a nightmare. It’s all about prior planning and in order to do that, we need to talk to people immediately. We’re going to need meetings already set up for next year,” Neely said.

Board member Ron Heberle thanked Zuehlke and Hammond for the points they made, saying they both demonstrated how much they care about their respective students before echoing Neely’s remarks about the importance of involving parents, teachers and administrators from both schools as early as possible.

“The sooner we get going on communications, the better off we’ll be. These are very different programs, but kids are kids. They’ll adapt,” Heberle said. “I see really good things happening, but that makes it incumbent upon us as adults to do this the right way.”