Superintendent's Spotlight

Lammersville Unified School District and Mountain House Developers (MHD) have entered into an agreement framework that addresses short and midterm facility and classroom space issues within LUSD, specifically at Mountain House High School and Julius Cordes Elementary School. This agreement memorializes a $65,000,000 investment into LUSD and is the result of a multi-year effort between the school district and developer.

MOU Framework:
At this evening’s Board of Trustee meeting, September 16, 2026, a comprehensive historical explanation of MHHS was given from its inception to the events that led to this 2026 framework between LUSD and Mountain House Developers (MHD). The link to the presentation video is here.

Context:
On April 8, 2026, a presentation was given at the LUSD Board of Trustee meeting that identified structural issues with the student generation rates identified within the Mountain House Master Plan (1994) and subsequent Specific Plans I (1994), II (1995) and III (1995). (click here to view this presentation) These issues were created within the origination documentation (1994) of the City of Mountain House and over time demonstrate the high school student projections were inadequate to size, scope, and scale of the Mountain House Master Plan at full build out.

Due to the impacts of the 1994 developer miscalculations regarding high school student projections, LUSD has been in long standing discussions with multiple master developers for solutions that address: 1) adequately sizing MHHS for all high school students created by the Mountain House Master Plan 2) identifying funding sources to pay for construction of additional facilities at MHHS and within Lammersville Unified 3) ensure that longitudinally the district’s TK-8 schools are appropriately sized to meet San Joaquin County/City of Mountain House approved development defined in the Mountain House Master Plan up to its maximum build out total of 16,105 housing units.

With Board direction, a negotiation with MHD regarding the aforementioned issues lead to an initial district proposal, delivered to MHD on June 30, 2026. It represents common agreement amongst the parties regarding MHHS and Julius Cordes Elementary and classroom space. The framework’s intended purpose is to allow LUSD to communicate to the Board of Trustees, the LUSD education community, and the general population of Mountain House/Lammersville details intended to address future student generation and solutions for space in the short and midterm.

Framework Summary:
The identified terms below are foundational and identify key elements of the agreement framework between LUSD and MHD based on the Mountain House Master Plan limit of 16,105 housing units at total build out. When executed, the framework will greatly expand and improve classroom and facility access to MHHS students and address increasing classroom space to TK-8 students in Cordes Village.

Key Elements:

1. A TK-8 school for Cordes Village will be built on the 19-acre property owned by LUSD two blocks southwest of the existing Cordes campus. It will be built based on the two-story, 950 student Evelyn Costa footprint.
2. The existing Cordes campus will be converted to an annex campus of Mountain House High School and will provide classrooms and facilities to high school students generated from the Mountain House Master Plan. The classroom totals for high school students will increase by approximately 38% (32 classrooms); additionally, the high school will also benefit from a Multipurpose room (gym, cafeteria, stage), a makerspace, library space, office/administrative space, and additional field space for extracurricular activities.
3. The school district will work with the developer to assist the process to procure state funding for the new, future Cordes TK-8 campus. All state funds will be yielded to the developer to reimburse a portion of funding advanced in support of this facilities project. The balance of advanced funding will not be paid by the school district.
4. Additional reimbursement will come from 870 age restricted housing units in Neighborhood L converting to market rate housing units (potential student creating homes). Impacts of this change will include the addition of approximately 200 high school students which will be absorbed into the space provided from the 38% increase in classrooms available.

For interested individuals that would like to understand this outcome more deeply, it is suggested that you view both the April 2026 Facilities presentation regarding student generation rates and the full presentation regarding the framework agreement with the district and developer.

The framework agreement directly addresses space issues at MHHS and Cordes Elementary and does so within the financial realities defined in the Mountain House Master Plan, Specific Plans I, II, and III, and the 1998 Mitigation Agreement. There are no requests for the community to pay additional taxes to make this agreement a reality. Today, there is no viable path that generates enough funding to construct a new comprehensive high school in Mountain House. Instead, the framework agreement lays out short and midterm solutions to issues of space that adds a second campus to MHHS (adjacent Cordes campus) and a new, larger K-8 elementary school in Cordes Village on the 19 acres.

Timeline for these projects has not been determined, but the design phase to conduct architectural work and requisite state regulatory approval processes, will begin shortly.

Thank you for your consideration on this matter.
Dr. Nicholas