Schools
Archived Posts from this Category
July 14, 2009
School starts in two weeks, Tuesday July 28. Some changes coming in the new school year, for the first time in a number of years all of Oakley School District’s schools will be on the same schedule. No more tracks. You can make plans for everyone without considering who’s on track.
Gehringer School Grades K-5
100 Simoni Ranch Road
Oakley, Ca 94561
Phone 925-625-7070
Fax 925-625-6356
Principal Jamie Buckman
Iron House School Grades K-5
4801 Frank Hengel Way
Oakley, Ca 94561
Phone 925-625-6825
Fax 925-625-6866
Principal Michele Gaudinier
Laurel School Grades K-5
1141 Laurel Road
Oakley, Ca 94561
Phone 925-625-7090
Fax 925-625-8300
Principal Anne Allen
Oakley School Grades K-5
501 Norcross Lane
Oakley, Ca 94561
Phone 925-625-7050
Fax 925-625-7068
Principal Kathy Kruse
Vintage Parkway School Grades K-5
1000 Vintage Parkway
Oakley, Ca 94561
Phone 925-625-6800
Fax 925-625-6813
Principal Christina Karg
Delta Vista Middle School Grades 6-8
4901 Frank Hengel Way
Oakley, Ca 94561
Phone 925-625-6840
Fax 925-625-6850
Principal Greg Hetrick
Asst. Principal Harvey Yurkovich
O’Hara Park Middle School Grades 6-8
1100 O’Hara Avenue
Oakley, Ca 94561
Phone 925-625-5060
Fax 925-625-5096
Principal Roger MacDonald
Asst. Principal Colleen Creswell
June 26, 2009
Liberty Union High School District EIR for 4th High School
Posted by Kevin under SchoolsLeave a Comment
LUHSD released a Draft Environmental Impact Report (EIR) for 45‐day public review period regarding the 4th High School proposed on Delta Road and Sellers Avenue. The Draft EIR is posted on the District’s website. A public hearing is scheduled for July 15th at 5pm at the LUHSD at 20 Oak Street, Brentwood, (925) 634-2166
An EIR is the planning document which describes the environmental impacts associated with a project. Typical impacts may include: traffic, air quality, noise, city services, and land use, among others. The EIR discusses these impacts and determines which ones are significant. It also describes mitigation measures to reduce the impacts to an appropriate or acceptable level.
Site Concept Plan
April 22, 2009
A year of changes in store for Oakley Union Elementary School District
Posted by Kevin under SchoolsLeave a Comment
After 39 years in various teaching and administrative positions, 29 years in the Oakley Union Elementary School District (OUESD), Assistant Superintendent of Educational Services Dr. Carol Boyd has announced her retirement. I had the pleasure of working with Dr. Boyd with the Lion’s Club. She was a judge for our Student Speaker contest on a number of occasions. I’m sure she will be missed by students, parents, staff and the community.
So, now what happens? How is that void filled? OUESD Superintendent Dr. Rick Rogers recently announced the following changes: Anne Allen, currently the Principal at Laurel, will replace Dr. Boyd. With this elementary principal vacancy in the District, Mimi Curran, Asst. Principal Laurel, has been recommended for promotion to Principal, school assignment to be determined. The OUESD is now in a position to rescind Sylvia Treichelt’s layoff notice and return her to an elementary assistant principal position next year with her specific assignment to be determined.
March 6, 2009
Monday March 2, was Read Across America Day. I spent part of the morning at Iron House Elementary School eating green eggs and ham and reading aloud to Ms Neville’s second grade class. The children were delightful and fun to talk with. I read two books but unfortunately the time passed to quickly. Next year I’ll read more.
Read Across America Day, celebrated annually on or near Dr. Seuss’s birthday, March 2, provides an opportunity to generate enthusiasm for reading. March is National Reading Month, so there’s still plenty of time to get involved and spread the love of reading!
November 11, 2008
School districts are a form of a Special-purpose district. Their boundaries are delineated to encompass certain geographical areas, which are not necessarily the same boundaries as the surrounding cities or towns. Districts are governed by a school board, members of which are elected by popular vote and are, basically, a legislative body, often thought of as being coequal and similar to a City Council or the County Board of Supervisors. The board has many powers including taxation and eminent domain. They appoint a superintendent who functions as the district’s chief executive to carry out the day-to-day administration.
The City of Oakley is served by three school districts. The Oakley Union Elementary School District, serving students in grade K-8, and consists of five elementary schools and two middle schools. Their boundary area covers most of Oakley and a very small part of Knightsen. The Liberty Union High School District has five high schools, one in Oakley. Liberty’s boundary includes most of Oakley, all of Brentwood, Knightsen, Bethel Island, Discovery Bay, Bryon and any unincorporated areas in between. The boundaries of the Antioch Unified School District with 14 elementary schools, including the newly opened Orchard Park in Oakley, four middle schools, one charter school and six high schools, covers all of Antioch and everything west of Empire Road, west on Main St (Highway 4) to Big Break and then north on Big Break to the river in Oakley.
The Antioch School District has had a long presence in Western Oakley. In 1883 the Live Oak School District was established to accommodate the population of what was known as the “sand country”. Two years later, on a lot about a mile and a half from the village of Oakley (now the Live Oak Community Church at the corner of Live Oak and Highway 4,), a former house was remodeled and transformed into a school which was named Live Oak. One teacher was in charge of approximately 25 students. In 1903, at a cost of $4000.00, a new school building was constructed on the same site. Somewhat later, when another teacher was needed, the one large room was divided into two rooms. The enrollment swelled to over 40 students.
In 1908, as a result of population increases, the Live Oak School District joined with the Antioch, Black Diamond (now Pittsburg), Somersville and Nortonville school districts to approve the first joint communities bond and raised $20,000 to build Riverview High School, the first high school in Contra Costa County. In 1921 a special election was held to consolidate the Live Oak and Antioch School Districts later morphing into the Antioch Unified School District.
Continuing their presence in Oakley the Antioch School District and the City of Antioch created the Antioch Area Public Facilities Financing Agency’s Community Facilities District 1989-1 (“CFD”), in 1989, commonly known as the Antioch Mello Roos District. The CFD was formed to finance five elementary schools, two middle schools, one high school and a 100 acre community park.
Mello Roos is a taxing methodology developed in 1982 to allow county, city, special district, or joint powers authority to bypass the property tax limitation established under Prop 13. Instead of increasing the tax on the value of your property, which is prohibited under Prop 13, the tax is calculated based on the “livable” square footage of the home, excluding the garage, rounded up to the next highest increment of 100. This tax can only be used to finance streets, sewer system and other basic infrastructure, police, fire, school, ambulance, and other cultural facilities. The CFD-89 rate is approximately $0.61 per square foot for homes in the City of Antioch and $0.48 for Oakley homes within the District (homes west of Empire). The majority of homes are in the new areas of Southeast Antioch, but also included are other new areas of Antioch as well as parts of Oakley which are within the Antioch Unified School District boundaries and were built after 1988. The tax is used to pay principal and interest on construction bonds that have been sold. These bonds mature at different times, from now all the way out to the year 2025. The newly opened Orchard Park School on Live Oak was not built using Mello-Roos funds.
Everyone in Oakley living west of Empire is in the Antioch School District and within the Mello-Roos boundaries. If your home was built before 1988 or if the builder paid off the bonds and included it in the price of your new home you will not see a Mello-Roos line item on your property tax bill.
The Mello-Roos tax may be the largest hurdle to leap when the issue of school district reorganization is broached. A boundary change will probably necessitate that the Mello-Roos bond debt be paid off. If the Antioch School District were to let the “Oakley Orphans” secede the remaining bond payers would be left to pay the debt. In all probability, they would opt to sue the School District to prevent this from happening. Therefore, it would be beneficial for the ensuing steps in the process if this issue were addressed first. Further steps include but are not limited to: filing a petition for boundary changes, approval from the County Superintendent and an election.
Once the Mello-Roos hurdle has been crossed there are two ways to start the process of transferring territory from one district to another. The first is a citizen initiated petition which requires signatures from at least 25% of the registered Oakley voters in the territory to be transferred. The second is also a citizen initiated petition which requires signatures from at least 10% of the registered voters in the entire school district. When all of the requirements are met there will be a proposition placed on the ballot for a vote by those in the entire school district. The complete process is detailed at the California Department of Education website. Chapter 5 contains the information you’ll need to proceed.
A question often asked of City Council members is, “Why don’t you do something to effect the boundary changes?” Over the years we have had dozens of meetings with the School Districts to encourage some sort of boundary adjustment, but in the end the City Council has absolutely no control over the situation. We can plead, cajole and make polite suggestions, however it is up to the respective elected school boards to work out the complicated details of any boundary adjustments. Frankly, the details of a change are so complicated and expensive that it is highly unlikely that the school boards will make any changes in the near future. For historical information you may want to view the Oakley Orphans website. This site has not been updated since 2004.
October 27, 2008
In October of 2007, Orchard Park Elementary, the first and only kindergarten-through-eighth-grade school in the Antioch Unified School District held its dedication ceremony. Orchard Park School is within the Antioch Unified School District and serves students from both Antioch and Oakley. During the 2008-2009 school year, Orchard Park will serve students in Kindergarten through 5th Grade. In subsequent years, the school will grow a grade level a year until it serves Kindergarten through 8th grade. In addition, Orchard Park School has an extended day Kindergarten program. It is located on Live Oak Ave. a two lane unimproved road in Oakley.
It is common sense and prudent policy for a School District to coordinate with the city or county where it is building a school to make sure there are safe pedestrian routes to the schools. But, because the State has pre-empted local development review, the School Districts in California have a habit of not worrying about the safe routes and dump that burden on the city or county. Orchard Park is just one example of this in East County.
The City of Oakley has now spent time and money after the fact to come up with a proposed solution. The solution involves an asphalt path to Oakley Rd, trying to utilize existing right of way. It is a little tight and we will need to put some delineators up to separate the roadway from this path, but we think it will help. This was done in front of the YMCA on O’Hara. Again, all of this should have been coordinated prior to the school being built. City staff did express these concerns to the District, but the District was assuming it was going to buy property up to Oakley Rd. When that deal fell through, they should have still obtained a sliver for a sidewalk, but didn’t.
A note to those parents upset at the City for “allowing” the school to be constructed without safe routes. I can only say that the City has no authority over the school district.
