Community shocked at sewage, vermin and other ‘deplorable’ school conditions detailed in Richmond

The West Contra Costa Unified School District abruptly shuttered Stege Elementary School last week.

RICHMOND — “Deplorable.” “A travesty.” “Fraud.”

That’s how aghast community members on Sunday described a public slideshow illustrating the disrepair at Stege Elementary School.

The presentation highlighted past instances of temps exceeding 90º inside classrooms without air conditioning or operable windows; single-stall toilets overflowing with sewage, dampening students’ shoes and pant legs; missing fire extinguishers inside the 81-year-old building; exposed wires hanging near rickety wooden structures; a cafeteria lacking any sanitary sinks, leaving its kitchen susceptible to contamination and ineligible for fresh fruit donations; pest and vermin infestations running amok above ceiling tiles; alleged asbestos discovered in the putty that previously held the school’s aging windows together.

The West Contra Costa Unified School District abruptly shuttered the K-5 campus last week, after what officials called “environmental hazards” were uncovered during summer repair work on the building — despite years of unanswered complaints from teachers and parents, which ballooned into a July 19 lawsuit over unsafe facility conditions.

But the grim details about the current state of Stege were not openly shared in the district’s announcement of the school closure, which blindsided residents who’ve long complained about inequitable learning environments.

“Everybody in this room knew this was happening, but the presentation shows the lies that have been sent to the state and to the community,” said Scottie Smith, a longtime advocate who works with parents across several nearby school districts. “We need transparency.”

Less than a month before the first day of school on Aug. 19, district officials announced that Stege’s roughly 250 students will instead be bussed to nearby DeJean Middle School, where roughly 380 students are already enrolled along Richmond’s bustling Macdonald Avenue corridor.

Several dozen people who attended a meeting Sunday — led by community members, including Stege alums — advocated for improvements that will ensure the elementary school remains a “stalwart” learning hub for its students, who are largely low-income, non-white and multilingual learners.

Poverty rates range from 84% to 97% at Stege Elementary, which is the only school in WCCUSD where Black and African American students combined represent the majority of the population; in the 2022-23 school year, Stege enrolled roughly 38% Black students and 34% Hispanic or Latino students.

Lakisha Mitchell-Keith grew up across the street from Stege, where her mother has run a daycare for 36 years.

Juxtaposed with the dilapidated conditions on display during a presentation at Saint Peters Methodist Church, Mitchell-Keith said this public information session was the best way to not only inform the community about years of substandard facilities for Richmond’s youth, but also force the district’s hand to make good on long-overdue promises for equity inside Stege, which was built in 1943.

“What we’re trying to do today is to give just a tiny glimpse of what the children and our staff at Stege Elementary School have had to endure,” Mitchell-Keith said, explaining the community’s demands that California’s school standards are followed equitably across the district. “But God makes no mistake — this is a temporary closure, so that we can actually improve this school so we can grow good fruits.”

Beyond shining a light on the substandard learning conditions at Stege, she also emphasized that WCCUSD’s records do not reflect the reality on the ground.

Instead, Mitchell-Keith said Stege Elementary received a 92% “good” rating for overall facility quality, according to records from a site visit in Aug. 2023, which reported to California officials that fire safety, mechanical, electrical and external conditions at Stege complied with state standards.

Michele Jackson, chair of the education committee for the NAACP El Cerrito branch, conceded that they should be fair to Superintendent Kenneth “Chris” Hurst, who she said is “trying to do the best he can” after he accepted the job in 2021.

However, Jackson singled out Luis Freese, associate superintendent for operations, who leads the district’s division responsible for bond programs, facilities, maintenance, custodial, grounds and safety. She called for Freese to resign, arguing that he not only failed to meet California’s standards for facilities and conditions, but also submitted reports to state officials that do not match the reality inside Stege’s halls.

Freese attended Sunday’s community meeting, but refused to comment on Stege’s current conditions or the calls for his resignation.

“Unfortunately, this gathering is probably 25 years too late,” Jackson said. “This is urgent, this is the foundation — you can’t send a report to the state saying that everything is 100% and the reality of the day says it’s 0%.”

WCCUSD officials said the closure will allow its facilities department to begin the Stege rebuild project ahead of schedule, and $43 million has been budgeted for “critical needs,” according to a February status report.

But concerned community members were firm on Sunday that immediate action to fix facility concerns at Stege is long overdue.

Years of delay — including numerous unanswered complaints dating back to 2022 — ultimately prompted teachers, parents and community members to sue the district last week, attempting to enforce California’s guarantee to provide all public school students with the basic tools necessary for a quality education.

While the district acknowledged the dangerous conditions at Stege Elementary in a series of April letters, Karissa Provenza, a law fellow with Public Advocates representing the plaintiffs, said a court order compelling the district to immediately respond to complaints and remedy violations was the community’s last avenue to demand change.

In the meantime, Hurst said that WCCUSD has “a comprehensive plan for facilities, academics, teacher vacancies and a number of things” in the future. But the need to prioritize safety prompted the district’s decision to immediately close Stege for now.

“I heard their passion,” Hurst said in an interview after the meeting Sunday. “We’re going to have rolling meetings with the community — going over the plans, but also just listening and being part of the conversation.”