HUGHSON – New homes being built and filled by new families in Hughson have resulted in growth in the student population in this small city.

“We are up about 120 students from last year,” said Brenda Smith, superintendent of the Hughson Unified School District.

But new homes are not the only driving factor of pushing student enrollment to 2,320. Smith said that it is the desire of some parents to have their children in smaller schools that have increased student numbers over the past five years.

“Most of that did happen at our high school over the last six years or so when we went from about 650 to now 900.”

Much of that growth was due to inter-district transfers from other communities.

“We have found that that is because we still a very small size of a high school compared to some of the larger ones in the area,” Smith said. “So families who are looking for a little bit of a smaller, more intimate school setting are choosing Hughson because we still have a great agriculture program, our athletics do well, we have a really great VAPA (visual and performing arts) program, a lot of AP classes and honors classes for students to take. So we still have a lot of programs and offerings in a small school setting.”

Numbers have increased at all of Hughson’s sites this year. They include Ross Middle School, Fox Road Elementary and Hughson Elementary.

Preschool through third grade numbers at Hughson Elementary Road saw an increase of about 45 students this year.

“I would say maybe five to eight years, we were seeing either declining or steady enrollment at our lower elementary schools.”

A native of Hughson, Smith’s theory is that because up until now there hasn’t been a lot of new home building in Hughson that families move in, have children who go to school, grow up and move away to start their own families, leaving childless couples behind.

“It’s not really common to have a lot of homes for sale or for rent in Hughson.”

Things changed with the building of new homes off of Euclid and Euclid and Hatch, and now with the 299 homes being built by KB Homes in the Parkwood project just east of Santa Fe Avenue. About half of the permits in the subdivision have been pulled and the remaining will occur over the next two years, Smith said.

Once Parkwood is built out, Hughson Unified expect to realize an additional 207 students:

• 119 students in kindergarten through fifth grade;

• 29 students in the sixth or eighth grade;

• 59 students in high school.

“We’re super thankful for that growth because, you know, I mean, if you don’t have new families coming in, your schools aren’t going to see that in your TK and kindergarten classroom.

Hughson has the classroom space and did not downsize staff after COVID.

“Since COVID, we just said, well, the smaller the class sizes the better, especially as we were going through COVID.”

Hughson did add one third grade teacher this year, from six to seven, due to it being a bubble grade level. The district also added a TK class now that TK is in full implementation.

Because about 20 teachers retired from secondary schools, Hughson was in a hiring mode.

“We’ve been adding portables and things like that to accommodate future growth.”

The amount of classrooms at Hughson High School will be increasing by seven because the voters of Hughson passed a $46 million bond last November.

The classrooms are being created from the remodeling of a building. The bonds also will allow the remodeling of the 30 wing – plus the installation of new seating and carpet at the campus’ Ella Webb Theater. Phase 1 also includes new roofing, heating and air conditioning, as well as new blacktop and storm drainage improvements.

Another addition will be the science/ag center building.

During the remodeling and adding the science and the ag center, portable classrooms will be rented to house the students, probably arriving in December. 

Bond proceeds will also be put to use moving the maintenance and transportation department at the Hughson Elementary School campus to the site of the current school farm across from the high school. That will open up space for a grade level wing of seven to eight classrooms where the maintenance department sits currently. That move should begin next summer.

Another plan is to move the district office – currently on the Ross Middle School campus – to the elementary school site on Whitmore Avenue.

“So it’ll kind of be like a maintenance, food service, transportation slash district office building and shop over there.” 

When Smith became superintendent eight years ago, the district offices were in a rented bank building on Hughson Avenue.