This post is for voters who want to understand what Measure H funds at the level of specific buildings, not aggregate budget lines. The contingency plan that triggers if Measure H fails twice closes two of four elementary schools. We’ve covered why that’s not the typical campaign closure threat and the housing-impact math. What we want to do here is walk the campuses one by one.

The five schools, plus a few honest words about each.

Brookside Elementary (San Anselmo)

Address: 116 Butterfield Road, San Anselmo Grades: TK–5 Enrollment: ~290 students

Brookside is a two-campus elementary straddling lower San Anselmo. Per the district’s own demographic profile, Brookside is the most diverse RVSD school by family income and home language, and a frequent focus of district equity efforts. It’s the school whose enrollment math most directly intersects with concerns about how a closure decision would land — closures of high-need-population schools tend to face more scrutiny than closures of lower-need schools, and Brookside’s profile is the one most readers of this site should think about carefully.

What the parcel tax funds at Brookside: small-group reading instruction, math intervention specialists, English-language-development support, and the special-education coordination that connects services across the district. Tier 2 of the contingency plan (covered here) eliminates the special-education and ELD coordinator positions. Brookside’s program would be more directly affected than schools with smaller high-need populations.

Hidden Valley Elementary (San Anselmo)

Address: 300 Pine Hill Road, San Anselmo Grades: TK–5 Enrollment: ~290 students

Tucked into the hills off Butterfield Road, Hidden Valley draws from the Hidden Valley neighborhood and serves a tighter geographic catchment than Brookside. Strong reading and math results; close-knit parent community. GreatSchools rating: 9/10.

Walkability is meaningful for Hidden Valley families — the catchment is hilly but compact, and a substantial share of students walk or bike to school. A closure that absorbed Hidden Valley into one of the other elementaries would convert a walkable elementary into a drive-required one for many families.

Manor Elementary (Fairfax)

Address: 150 Oak Manor Drive, Fairfax Grades: TK–5 Enrollment: ~290 students

Manor is Fairfax’s neighborhood elementary, perched above Sir Francis Drake Boulevard. It has the top GreatSchools rating in the district (10/10) and one of the highest in the county. Manor was the original home of the Multi-Age Program (MAP) that became Ross Valley Charter School in 2017 — see our post on the in-lieu transfer for that history.

Manor’s role in Fairfax goes beyond academics. The school’s location in central Fairfax is part of why downtown Fairfax functions the way it does — the school playground is a Saturday morning destination, the school events draw the broader community, and Manor parents are anchor figures in many Fairfax civic groups. A closure of Manor would change Fairfax meaningfully, not just RVSD.

Wade Thomas Elementary (San Anselmo)

Address: 150 Ross Avenue, San Anselmo Grades: TK–5 Enrollment: ~270 students (smallest of the four elementaries)

Walkable from downtown San Anselmo and from many of San Anselmo Avenue’s surrounding neighborhoods. GreatSchools rating: 9/10. Wade Thomas is the district’s smallest elementary by enrollment — and the one most frequently mentioned in informal discussions of closure-contingency scenarios, because its smaller enrollment and central location would make consolidation into Brookside or Hidden Valley relatively straightforward in a Tier 3 closure scenario.

The district has not published a list of which two elementaries would close under Tier 3, and the contingency plan doesn’t name specific schools — but the smallest-enrollment elementary is the natural candidate in any school-district closure analysis, both because the per-student fixed-cost overhead is highest at the smallest school and because consolidating its students into a neighboring elementary requires the smallest absorption capacity at the receiving school.

White Hill Middle School (Fairfax)

Address: 101 Glen Drive, Fairfax Grades: 6–8 Enrollment: ~570 students (district’s only middle school)

Every RVSD elementary student matriculates to White Hill. GreatSchools rating: 9/10. Strong electives program, music program, and athletics — all of which depend on the parcel tax to operate at their current scope.

Tier 1 of the contingency plan (already in motion regardless of Measure H) cuts $170,000 in stipends and additional staff hours at White Hill. Tier 2 (triggered if Measure H fails) cuts the second elective at White Hill — meaning a typical 6th, 7th, or 8th grader who currently takes both a music or art elective and a STEM/world-language elective would be reduced to one elective. That’s a meaningful program reduction.

White Hill is also home to Ross Valley Charter School (RVC) under Prop 39 facilities access — eight classrooms within the White Hill complex. The relationship has been complicated for nearly a decade (our post on RVC covers the history), and any reconfiguration of White Hill in a Tier 3 scenario would intersect with the Prop 39 obligations.

What the closure math actually points at

The contingency plan’s Tier 3 is the closure of two of four elementaries. Per the enrollment math:

• Going from 4 elementaries (~290 students each) to 3 puts each at ~380 — comfortably within typical capacity. One closure is the cleaner consolidation.
• Going from 4 to 2 puts each at ~575 — workable but at upper capacity, requiring real facility reconfiguration.

The “two closures” framing in the contingency plan is the documented worst case rather than the point estimate. In practice, a one-closure scenario is more defensible on the enrollment math, and a state administrator (under receivership) might choose differently than the local board would.

What we’re confident about: at least one elementary closure is realistic if Measure H fails twice. Which one would close is not publicly determined and would depend on geographic distribution of remaining enrollment, facility condition, and political process — including potential receivership, which removes some of those choices from local control.

Why this matters for your vote

When you vote on Measure H, you’re voting on whether to keep all five of these campuses operating as they are now, or to commit to a path that ends with two of them closing by August 2028.

We’ve made the broader budget and policy case throughout this site. What we want to add here is the simpler version: these are the schools. Brookside, Hidden Valley, Manor, Wade Thomas, White Hill. Real campuses, real kids walking through the doors every morning.

A Yes vote on Measure H keeps them. A No vote on June 2 puts that to November. A No on November 3, 2026 commits the district to closing two of them by August 2028.

That’s why we recommend a Yes vote on Measure H.

Sources

1. Schools at a glance — full information on each RVSD campus, including addresses, grade ranges, enrollment, and GreatSchools ratings.

2. Marin IJ (Jan 31, 2026): “Ross Valley School District drafts $4.3M in budget cuts” — three-tier MCOE-required contingency plan, including Tier 2 cuts at White Hill and Tier 3 closure of two elementary schools.

← All posts