Richmond elementary school temporarily closes after "environmental hazards" found
West Contra Costa Unified School District Superintendent Kenneth Hurst announced the temporary closure of Stege Elementary School in a letter to families Tuesday after environmental hazards were found on the campus.
“During the summer repair work, we encountered environmental hazards. In response, WCCUSD will relocate the Stege community for the start of the 2024-25 school year,” Hurst wrote. “This will ensure the safety of students and staff, and allow our facilities department to begin the Stege rebuild project ahead of schedule.”
Hurst said WCCUSD will implement a contingency plan until Stege students and staff are able to return to their newly remodeled campus.
“We will provide more updates as we continue to solidify the particulars of the contingency plan,” Hurst said.
Last week, a group of educators, staff, and parents filed a suit against WCCUSD for failing to address poor building conditions and teacher vacancies and violating the rights of students, particularly Black, low-income, and multilingual learners.
According to EdSource, the lawsuit was filed by civil rights law firm Public Advocates and pro bono counsel Munger, Tolles & Olson. The lawsuit cites the landmark Williams v. California settlement in 2004, which established the complaint process, the right to textbooks, clean, safe schools, and qualified teachers for all California public school students.
WCCUSD is the first district to face litigation based on the Williams decision.
In February, San Francisco-based advocacy group and law firm Public Advocates filed multiple complaints alleging Stege Elementary School, Helms Middle School, and John F. Kennedy High School have numerous teacher vacancies and a pattern of illegally filling vacancies with long-term substitutes.
Soren Hemmila
Public Advocates’ Law Fellow and lead attorney on the lawsuit against WCCUSD, Karissa Provenza, said Stege’s closure is the result of the District not addressing the school’s long-standing issues.
“The temporary closure at Stege Elementary highlights the District’s failure to address urgent and dangerous conditions that have been prevalent at the school site for years. The Williams complaint process, in part, was established to ensure that all students have access to safe and healthy schools. Unfortunately, the District’s disregard of this process has exacerbated the emergency issues that have led to this situation,” Provenza said.
Built in 1943, the aging building was scheduled to be remodeled by the 2020-21 school year, but numerous delays have stalled the plan. Along with claims of mold and cascading ceiling tiles are the concerningly low test scores that have continued to plague the school, with recent test scores illustrating problems that run deeper than the school’s deteriorating facade.
Test scores have remained largely stagnant since 2017, but in 2023, only eight percent of Stege students were proficient in reading, 10 percent were proficient in math, and the school boasted a whopping 41 percent absentee rate—approaching half the school’s population.
Even more concerning, according to the California School Dashboard, Stege students are 113.1 points below standard in English Language Arts and 108.5 points below standard in math, while just 23.9 percent of English learners are “making progress.”
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