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Board hears enrollment and capacity data as district readies Steel Lane reconfiguration; LC Allen staff urge more support for magnet conversion
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Summary
District staff presented early-year enrollment and classroom-capacity data Sept. 10 and told the board the planned reconfiguration of Steele Lane Elementary can likely be accommodated across nearby campuses but will require specific site-level decisions about portables and repurposed rooms.
Santa Rosa City Schools staff told the board Sept. 10 that early fall enrollment is roughly in line with the district's longer-range projections but that capacity pressures at some campuses will make next year's planned reconfiguration and boundary changes challenging.
A staff presenter reported about 13,800 students district-wide at the start of the academic year, roughly 500 fewer than the prior year's Census Day count but close to the counts assumed in the district's facilities master plan. Early-year average daily attendance (ADA) across the first 10 days averaged about 92%, a number used in LCFF projections; daily attendance rose during the first two weeks and was near 11,300 on the meeting day.
Staff highlighted patterns by grade band: universal transitional-kindergarten (TK) uptake is higher than projected, while several secondary grade cohorts are smaller than expected, reflecting the ripple of lower elementary cohorts aging through the system. For elementary capacity, principals were surveyed about classroom and ancillary-space use. Some sites such as Luther Burbank and Procter Terrace were described as at or near capacity and relying on non-classroom spaces (multipurpose rooms, music rooms, other shared spaces) to host instruction. Other campuses have available rooms.
The board revisited the planned 2026'27 reconfiguration of Steele Lane Elementary (Steele Lane) and the proposed redistribution of its students to Hidden Valley, James Monroe and Helen Lehman. Staff estimated that redistributing Steele Lane's roughly 400 students would create a need for roughly 16 additional classrooms across receiving campuses; existing construction projects and reassignable rooms could cover many but not all of that need in the near term. Staff said the district has approved eight new classrooms between James Monroe and Ellen Lehman and identified several campus rooms now used for non-classroom purposes that could be repurposed; after accounting for those moves staff estimated a potential shortfall of a few classrooms and recommended further work to identify exact locations and portables or phased solutions.
On secondary boundaries, trustees asked staff to return with alternative maps: several board members said they wanted a scenario that aligns high-school assignments with feeder-district boundaries, and others asked the district to test historic assignments for parts of Mark West/Marquess and an option that keeps walkable neighborhood assignments for Santa Rosa's core. Staff agreed to model several scenarios for the board, including the historic Marquess split, a district-feeder alignment option, and a walkability-focused option for central Santa Rosa.
The meeting included extensive public comment focused on LC Allen, the newly reconstituted magnet/school-of-choice campus. Multiple staff and community speakers, including Angel Ortega and two LC Allen employees, thanked the district for recent physical improvements but urged immediate marketing and operational support for LC Allen's transition to a school of choice, warning that families were not being sufficiently informed of the new enrollment pathways ahead of the Oct. 1 open-enrollment window.
Trustees asked staff to bring boundary scenarios back for November discussion and asked the superintendent and communications staff to ensure enrollment maps and the school-locator tool reflect any final decisions before open enrollment. Staff said they will provide modeling tools and a public communication plan once scenarios are developed.
