Stege parents seek answers, as students prepare to start school elsewhere

Five days before the start of the new school year, parents of Stege Elementary School students left a meeting with district officials Wednesday with many of their questions unanswered. 

Last month, citing environmental hazards, the West Contra Costa Unified School District announced Stege’s immediate closure for renovations that could take up to three years. Since then, district officials met several times with the community, including a meeting Wednesday in which parents voiced concerns about transportation to the host school, crowding, bathroom access and teacher vacancies.

Superintendent Kenneth “Chris” Hurst tried to reassure them, saying the staff has been working hard to address all of their concerns before school starts on Monday. “Our staff deeply cares about all of our students,” he said.

During the transition, all Stege students — roughly 250 kindergarten through sixth graders — will be bussed to DeJean Middle School, which is also in Richmond. Stege, which has the highest percentage of Black students among the district’s elementary schools, dates to 1943 and has been in line for a major renovation.

Its poor condition was among the complaints in a July 19 lawsuit filed against WCCUSD by the San Francisco firm Public Advocates. It alleges that the district failed to address unsafe building issues at Stege, Helms Middle School and Kennedy High School. That, as well as chronic teacher vacancies, are violating students’ rights to safe schools and qualified teachers, the suit contends.

Days after it was filed, Stege was closed for hazards that the district didn’t name.

“In terms of whether this was a response to our lawsuit, what we know is that a week after we filed, the school found hazardous materials while completing some non-structural repairs,” Karissa Provenza, a law fellow at Public Advocates, said in an email. 

In June 2023 Public Advocates presented WCCUSD with 50 complaints about such things as mold, leaks, chipping paint, sewage smells and windows that don’t open. The district had put the school third on a list of priorities for a $575 million bond issue to improve buildings, behind Kennedy and Richmond high schools.

United Teachers of Richmond President Francisco Ortiz said there’s been “a level of disinvestment from the top leadership” who knew about the situation for years but took no real steps to remedy it.

“As an educator, I am angry about the learning environment. The condition of that building wasn’t something brand new,” Miesha Harris Gash, a Kennedy High teacher, said at a recent school board meeting. “The district raised me and it just hurts me to my core that whatever has been going on at Stege was not discovered and action taken sooner.”

On Wednesday, parents had questions about how a Stege campus within DeJean would work. They were concerned about their children having to use outdoor restrooms and about the proximity of kindergarten and middle school restrooms. Some were uncomfortable about Stege children, who would normally walk to school, having to take a bus to DeJean. They pressed district officials about what will happen when a child gets sick and their parent has no car to pick them up, or when a child misses the bus.

As for concerns about teacher vacancies, which have been a chronic problem at Stege, Hurst said all vacancies have been filled and that there will only be one long-term substitute, who happens to be a retired and credentialed teacher.

‘I feel like you guys don’t care about our school’: Stege students, staff ask WCCUSD to fix 80-year-old building