Merced City School District boundary changes causing stress for families affected
Ashley Wood left a recent Merced City School District board meeting happy her son wouldn’t have to switch schools next academic year due to the district’s school boundary adjustments.
The board of trustees initially approved a boundary adjustment plan that included exceptions for a two groups of students who would remain at John Muir and Chenoweth elementary schools.
Wood and many parents who attended the Feb. 11 board meeting left when the board went to recess after the vote. It wasn’t until the next morning that Wood found out the school board changed their vote and her son would in fact have to change schools.
“It just seems fishy to most of us parents,” Wood said. “So while we were there, you’re going to let our kids go to the school we wanted them to go to, and then after recess is over — and the parents have left — you decide to change a vote.”
Schools overcrowded
The issue the district is facing is the overcrowding at schools. To tackle the problem, MCSD is redrawing school boundaries and additionally will move sixth grade students from elementary schools to middle schools.
After an 18-month process, which the district says included facilities and enrollment projections, the school board voted on a school boundary adjustment plan that will impact about 1,200 of the district’s 12,000 students.
Merced City School District superintendent Julianna Stocking, who started her position with the district in July, says the approval of boundary adjustments address a long-standing challenge of overcrowding for the district.
“We know that this is a very big decision, and that it is going to impact our students, our families and as well as our staff,” Stocking said. “So we’re going to be working closely with our teams to ensure that we’re continuing to focus on quality of educational programs, as well as safe facilities, and really looking at having balanced class sizes to support quality of educational programs at each of our schools across the district.”
Sixth graders moving to middle school
During the meeting the school board approved adjustments to the elementary and middle school boundaries starting with the start of the 2025-26 school year. The board also approved moving sixth graders from elementary to middle school campuses beginning in the 2026-27 school year.
Moving sixth graders to join seventh and eighth graders at the district’s four middle schools Tenaya, Hoover, Rivera and Cruickshank will help alleviate the overcrowding at the elementary schools.
The move will also give sixth graders other opportunities at middle schools including elective classes.
“One of the things that we’ve seen is that having sixth, seventh and eighth graders on a campus gives us more capacity for programs, resources, staffing, elective options for our students,” Stocking said. “We are looking to align our programs to Merced Union High School District, specifically in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) and CTE ( Career Technical Education), so that we can start providing offerings for our students in early CTE elective options.”
Stocking said the district will be looking to offering world language classes in middle schools next year, including Spanish classes.
With the population growing on the north side of Merced, many of the schools in that area including Rivera , Chenoweth, Peterson and Burbank elementary schools are dealing with overcrowding.
With over 800 students, Rivera Elementary has been forced to use classrooms from Rivera Middle School, which is located next door.
“I went to speak to the school staff and they had one custodial staff for the entire elementary school with like 800 plus students,” said MSCD Board President Priya Lakireddy. “So that’s a safety issue. The lunch room is full, so they have to stagger how kids come in and go out. That is a safety issue. So what we’re really trying to do is alleviate overcrowding in three or four schools.”
With the boundary changes, Rivera is projected to be 44 students over capacity next year and then 65 students under capacity when sixth grade students move to middle school for the 2026/27 school year.
Impacted families upset
Tensions were already running high at the board meeting with many parents voicing their concerns about the impact changing schools will have on their children.
Board member Annie Delgado proposed keeping a group of 29 students who live near John Muir Elementary at the school by adding a portable classroom.
Lakireddy proposed a similar exclusion that would keep a group of 88 students at Chenoweth with the addition of multiple portable classrooms despite district officials pointing out the move would put the elementary school near capacity.
Both proposals were passed initially by the board, but after a recess the board was informed due to a procedural error made during the initial vote it needed to rescind the prior motions, cast new motions and vote again.
The John Muir exclusion passed, but the Chenoweth vote didn’t after trustee Beatrice McCutchen changed her vote and voted against allowing those 88 students to remain at the school.
McCutchen didn’t offer an explanation for the change and didn’t wish to comment when contacted by the Sun-Star.
Lakireddy, who represents the Chenoweth area, was visibly emotional when her proposal was voted down.
“I was emotional because I could see the impact this decision was going to have on a lot of families,” Lakireddy said. “It’s unfortunate the way it happened.”
The re-vote came after most parents left the board meeting. Many parents at the meeting had children who attended Chenoweth and John Muir.
“All the parents are gone, and there’s nobody there trying to fight for their kids,” Wood said. “McCutchen decided to flip her vote and say no to the area and going change it after she had just said yes, when all the parents were there.”
Prior to the new boundaries being approved, about a dozen parents expressed concern about the stress and inconvenience changing schools will create for their children.
One parent said his daughter will be asked to go to a school nearly two miles away despite living eight houses away from her current school.
“A lot of hard work has gone into it, I understand, but it’s easy to isolate every child into a number, and our kids aren’t numbers,” said parent Alicia Perez to the board.
Perez says her son struggled to acclimate at a new school, calling it an “emotional roller coaster.”
“You guys are not in our homes,” Perez said. “You guys aren’t with our students, and you and your team, I’m sorry, are not the ones to advocate for our kids.”
April Graves spoke about her autistic son who attends Chenoweth. She said the staff at the school has worked hard to help him, including his teacher create a transition book titled ‘Logan goes to Chenoweth,’ that he reads every day.
The new district boundaries would send Graves’ son to a new school.
“He has developed a deep sense of routine and familiarity at Chenoweth, which is central for his well being,” Graves said. “His team at Chenoweth have been amazing in supporting his needs, and the connections he has made with them have been pivotal in his growth and success.”
What’s next?
Stocking says the district will soon begin notifying families and school staff who will be impacted by the boundary changes. School staff that will be affected by the move will also be notified.
“We will continue to host ongoing community meetings, just as we start to talk about resources that we will be implementing for transition support,” she said.
One option for families impacted by the move is to apply for school of choice, which is a lottery system and is limited by how many open spots are available at a particular school.
According to the district, there were 105 students utilizing the school of choice option this school year.
With a projection of adding 450 more students in the next five years, MCSD is in the beginning stages of planning the construction of a new school in north Merced. Stocking said the district will begin putting aside bond money and will begin bond oversight process to eventually build the new school.
Last year, voters approved an $80 million school bond for the district to help improve and modernize facilities.
Stocking says the district owns land at three potential sites in north Merced and the new school would likely be a middle school based off enrollment projections and demographic information.
“The important thing is that we want to be ready to move forward with the development of a new school, as we’re looking to be at capacity in the year 2029- 2030,” Stocking said. “That will put us in a really solid position to already have the planning stages ready. So then when we’re eligible for additional state funds then we have additional funds to finish that building of the school.”
This story was originally published February 20, 2025 at 5:24 PM.
