McKinley Elementary in Tracy, California, one of the oldest schools in a district strained by explosive growth, will be demolished and rebuilt as an entirely new campus under a project now entering its planning phase.

Tracy Joint Unified School District is moving forward with what it's calling the "McKinley Elem New Campus Project," targeting a 2025 construction start for completion during the 2026-27 school year. The full replacement reflects a calculation increasingly common in California districts: when aging schools need seismic retrofits, new electrical systems, ADA upgrades, and modern HVAC, starting fresh often costs less than piecemeal repairs.

Tracy's population exploded from 33,000 in 1990 to over 93,000 today, driven by Bay Area families seeking affordable housing 60 miles east of San Francisco. School infrastructure hasn't kept pace. McKinley likely dates to California's post-war building boom and serves one of Tracy's older neighborhoods, making this project as much about equity as capacity.

The work is funded through Measure E, a $229 million facilities bond Tracy voters approved in 2018 with 62% support. That bond followed decades of deferred maintenance across California districts, a legacy of Proposition 13's 1978 tax limits that starved schools of local revenue. Recent changes in state law dropped the approval threshold for local school bonds from two-thirds to 55%, opening a window for districts like Tracy to tackle overdue replacements.

Tracy Unified serves approximately 15,000 students across 22 schools. The district hasn't disclosed McKinley's student population or whether students will attend other campuses during construction.