District and developer strike $65 million deal to ease school crowding in Mountain House

Lammersville Unified School District (LUSD) and Mountain House Developers (MHD) have reached an agreement framework that would put $65 million toward easing space pressure at Mountain House High School (MHHS) and Julius Cordes Elementary School.

District leaders described the deal as the result of a multi-year effort. Superintendent Dr. Kirk Nicholas announced it after the Board of Trustees meeting on September 16, where the district also gave a presentation tracing MHHS’s history.

• What the framework would do

Under the plan, a new TK-8 school for Cordes Village would be built on a 19-acre site the district owns, two blocks southwest of the current campus. It would follow the two-story, 950-student design used for Evelyn Costa Elementary.

The existing Cordes campus would then become an annex of Mountain House High School. The district says that would add about 32 classrooms, roughly 38% more high school classroom capacity. The annex would also bring a multipurpose room with a gym, cafeteria and stage, a makerspace, library space, offices and more field space for extracurricular activities. The district’s FAQ says it could serve up to about 1,000 students.

• Who pays

The district says residents would not face additional taxes. MHD would advance the money, and the district would help it secure state funding for the new Cordes campus. All of those state funds would go to the developer as partial reimbursement, and the district says it would not repay the remaining balance.

Further reimbursement would come from converting 870 age-restricted homes in Neighborhood L to market-rate housing. That change is expected to add about 200 high school students, whom the district says the new annex classrooms can absorb.

• Why not a second high school?

The district says a second comprehensive high school is out of reach. It estimates a new one would cost at least $350 million, more than developer fees, bonds and district financing could cover without significant financial risk.

Officials traced the shortfall to the 1990s Mountain House Master Plan, which consolidated two planned high schools into one. The district’s presentation calls this the “Original Sin.” MHHS was built for about 2,400 students on student-generation rates that the district now says were too low. An April 8 presentation to the board laid out those concerns, and the district delivered its initial proposal to MHD on June 30.

The master plan caps development at 16,105 housing units. The district says the framework is designed to size its schools for growth up to that limit.

• What happens next

The framework is not yet executed. Dr. Nicholas said no timeline has been set, though design work and state regulatory approvals will begin shortly. The district’s FAQ projects about 15 months for design and approvals and 15 months for construction, roughly 30 months before opening. Once the new Cordes school is complete, current Cordes students would move there, and Cordes Village students temporarily housed elsewhere could return.

The district says no reductions to MHHS programs are proposed. It also says the school is large but not overcrowded, with a 35:1 student-teacher ratio.

The September 16 presentation and the April 2026 facilities presentation are available on the district’s website.