Over the summer, construction of a brand new elementary school began in Foster City. The currently unnamed school is being built in Charter Square and is supposed to take some of the strain off the other three schools in the area.
Colleen Sullivan is a former school board member who worked on getting the new school built and gave some background on the reasons behind the school.
“The three current elementary schools in Foster City — Audubon, Brewer Island, and Foster City Elementary — were all growing beyond their original enrollment size,” Sullivan said. “So it was a need … from the school district’s perspective … because it’s easier … the bigger the school the harder it is to do lunch; you have to do rotating lunches, you have one computer lab, one library, you’d have to rotate however many classes through that you have.”
“Aragon already has to deal with the increase in freshmen students every year, and the school would only create more issues with accommodations for more students”
Some Foster City residents have had concerns about the long term consequences of the change, like junior Kevin Ren.
“As more and more elementary school students graduate from the new school, it’ll end up flooding the SMFCSD and SMUHSD school districts with new students,” said Ren. “Aragon already has to deal with the increase in freshmen students every year, and the school would only create more issues with accommodations for more students.”
This change is not expected to have life-altering impacts, at least in the short term, on anyone in the area.
“It [the new school] won’t alter me or my sister’s lives that much,” said junior Max Yeh. “The plaza that was there before the school had some good restaurants and a post office but that isn’t much, so there’s not really much changing … There might be more younger families moving into Foster City, but that’s always been the case.”
Years of planning and changing ideas went into the final school plan.
“The original idea that was proposed … was Measure P,” Sullivan said. “That proposal was to add classrooms on Bowditch’s site so that Bowditch would be … fifth through eighth. It was voted down. People in Foster City didn’t want it either so then … the school board … had to go back to the drawing board and say, ‘okay so didn’t work … we’re back to needing a fourth elementary school … [so] let’s talk to Charter Square.’ ”
Though there were traffic concerns on many minds, the additional school would either alleviate or have no impact on the traffic in the area.
“ If you look at it on a map … it’s more centrally located. Its close-ish to Brewer Island and close to Foster City Elementary. So families’ whose school had been Foster City Elementary can now walk to charter square and Brewer Island [students can walk] as well” Sullivan said. “I think with the way that they designed the layout of the school, there is a drop off that comes off the road and into the parking lot so they’re trying to, by doing that the goal is to reduce impact on the traffic on … Shell. So they were very conscious of that, like how do we make sure that the drop off at the beginning of school and pick up at the end of school doesn’t impact commuter traffic?”
The change is better for the school communities as well, creating more connections between teachers and students.
“I would say the school would end up as a net positive impact on the community,” Ren said. “With less crowding of students in elementary schools, teachers can focus on assisting students that need the most help in each class instead of trying to manage too many kids.”
The new school is estimated to be finished in 18 months, and represents both a way to allow Foster City residents to have a school closer to home and as a way to alleviate traffic around the area.
