Tuesday, May 13, 2008

By EVE HIGHTOWER
ehightower@modbee.com

last updated: February 29, 2008 07:51:45 AM

OAKDALE -- Like the students it serves, Oakdale Community School has had a hard time finding a place for itself.

After a decade in the community, the alternative education school is looking to make a permanent home in an industrial park. But putting a school next to the car shops and factories at Yosemite Avenue and Wakefield hardly seems a good fit, City Manager Steve Hallam said.

Stanislaus County Office of Education officials disagree. The school would be on five acres near businesses where the students might someday work.

"And there's not a lot for them to get into there," said Bob Dittman, a Stanislaus County Office of Education division director.

The school has few options. Putting it in a neighborhood or next to offices might generate complaints because "our kids need to work on their social skills," Dittman said.

The alternative education school serves students from Oakdale, Riverbank, Waterford and beyond who have left their schools or been kicked out of their districts.

"It's very much a high-risk population," Dittman said.

But these students aren't a bunch of thugs, he added. They have unique issues, including giftedness, that edged them out of the conventional education system. So they've turned to home study and are tutored at Oakdale Community School.

"It's a school of last resort," he said.

The school is a base for about 100 students, who study at home and receive some lessons from the school's three full-time teachers.

Like most school districts in the area, enrollment at Oakdale Community is declining. Still, the school needs more space than the downtown Oakdale boutique it's in now.

"There will always be students coming our way. There will be fewer, but they'll always be coming. When we have them, we want to give them the best education we can," Dittman said.

That education should include vocational training, he added. The facility the district hopes to build would provide enough room to teach students trades.

But Hallam has two main concerns: safety and land use.

Putting students next to industry is a health and safety concern, he said. The school would be neighbors with businesses that generate big rig traffic and can use strong chemicals. One business markets gun accessories.

Also, industrial space is scarce and highly sought after in Oakdale. Putting a school on the site rather than a businesses will generate fewer jobs and revenue, Hallam said. As a school, Oakdale Community also can exempt itself from zoning and mitigation fees that the city is counting on to help pay for infrastructure it installed for industry.

So far, it's the only site the district is looking at in Oakdale, Dittman said.

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at www.modbee.com. Bee staff writer Eve

Hightower can be reached at ehightower@modbee.com or 578-2382.