Last July, the City of San Marcos and the San Marcos Unified School District established the Joint Task Force on School Development (Task Force) to formally partner in planning for the future of San Marcos schools.
With a decade’s long history of supporting one another, the city and district serve the community of San Marcos together and their destinies are intertwined.
While growth presents challenges, it also brings energy to the community and strengthens the local economy. Growth has been instrumental in supporting a robust School District and is a key component in providing funds to build future schools.
The recently established Task Force is focused on sharing information with their respective elected bodies and the public, identifying possible locations for school sites, and planning for the future.
Already, the Task Force has taken numerous steps to understand school needs and growth trends, and to come up with solutions for the current challenges:
•Data Sharing & Growth Projections: While the district regularly collects data regarding growth trends, the Task Force has further examined information on the City General Plan – a 20+ year long term planning document –and data regarding actual build out.
By analyzing current and anticipated residential growth, the School District is better able to determine its needs to increase capacity at school sites and to locate and purchase land for new school sites.
•Exploring Options for Schools: The Task Force continues to review options for addressing increasing student enrollment across the city.Options include ways to optimize existing schools to handle current and projected demand, and ways to increase resources for school infrastructure.
•School Site Search: A focus of the Task Force has been to identify possible sites for new schools.The district is in the initial phases of exploring several potential sites.
A comprehensive update on Task Force progress will be shared during a joint public meeting between the San Marcos City Council and the San Marcos School Board on Thursday, March 29 at 6 pm at the San Marcos Community Center, 3 Civic Center Drive.
For more information, please contact Communications Officer Sarah Macdonald at (760) 744-1050, ext. 3174 or smacdonald@san-marcos.net
To learn more about the City of San Marcos, visit www.san-marcos.net. For more information about the San Marcos Unified School District, visit www.smusd.org.
