Facts >> Massive Development and Impact on Schools

Under the proposed Patterson development plan, a small elementary school and site (in a high-risk liquefaction zone designated by the USGS in 2006¹) are proposed to be donated, but these are not legal obligations. Junior high and senior high schools are not addressed in the Patterson proposal.

California state standards for school site selection states that a new school should not be built on land that is subject to high risk of liquefaction in an earthquake. In addition, the proposal includes putting in 148,000 cubic yards of soil in an attempt to raise all the proposed buildings from the flood hazard zone, 130,000 cubic yards of which is excavated from parts of the site and moved to other parts.

Both Thornton Junior High and American High School are over capacity². "If the number of students from the Patterson development cannot be accommodated at these schools, or if the necessary expansion is not feasible or recommended, the District may be required to resort to more difficult accommodations with wider-ranging effects such as assigning students to other campuses, adjusting attendance area boundaries, modifying District programs, or changing school scheduling to year-round calendars to increase usable capacity."³

Thus, families of students already in these and other Fremont schools would suffer. What happens to quality of education if steps described above were implemented?

Regarding Fremont Unified School District’s capacity, K-6 is at 99.34%, junior high is at 97.05%, and senior high is at 97.05%.¹ All it takes is overdevelopment, some normal wear and tear breakdown in some of the facilities, and schools will be over 100% capacity. Parents, teachers, and students will then have to be concerned about the consequences of overcrowding rather than education.

The Patterson development proposal shows a shortfall of $10.4 million, which assumes State funding being available for building an elementary school. But in a "worst case" scenario, which assumes payment of developer impact fees, no State grants (since it is never certain that State funding will be available for capital projects), and no contribution of a school site, the Patterson proposal results in a $16.6 million shortfall.² Neither of these cases deal with the problem of ongoing maintenance, or teacher salaries and benefits (80% of a school's costs). Thus, for all Fremont residents, the problem of educating the new students could be very expensive.

In conclusion, the developer is dangling a school and sport field as part of the large housing tract proposal in hopes of obtaining city council approval. An elementary school and 800 housing units (current General Plan only allows 266 housing units, but the developer wants the General Plan amended to allow an increase to 800 housing units) located on land at high risk of liquefaction and in a flood hazard zone put children's and families' lives in jeopardy.

¹Sources: U.S. Geological Survey and California Geological Survey 2006;
http://earthquake.usgs.gov/regional/nca/qmap/
²Source: Fremont Unified School District.
³Bay Area Economics. Northern Plain Planning Area Initiative Fiscal Analysis. June 2006. Pages 56, 60.