If you have a kid at Wade Thomas Elementary School (or you’re a Ross Avenue or San Anselmo Avenue neighbor who walks past the playground every morning), Measure H is on your June 2, 2026 ballot for one big reason: Wade Thomas is the largest of RVSD’s four elementary schools by enrollment, anchoring downtown San Anselmo on a site that has housed a public school continuously since 1898. In any Tier 3 closure scenario, Wade Thomas is the campus where the disruption ripples furthest — whether as the site that absorbs displaced students from a smaller campus that closes, or, in the worst case, as a closure target whose ~315 students have to land somewhere.
This page is a Wade Thomas–specific look at Measure H: what it funds at Wade Thomas, what’s at stake if it fails, and the case for voting Yes from a Wade Thomas family’s perspective.
Our recommendation: Yes on Measure H. Wade Thomas serves about 315 students in transitional kindergarten through fifth grade at 150 Ross Avenue in downtown San Anselmo, on a site that has continuously housed a public school since 1898. It is the largest of the four RVSD elementaries by enrollment, anchoring downtown San Anselmo. A No vote on Measure H puts the campus at the center of a closure scenario by August 2028, either as a receiving school for displaced students or as a closure target itself. We recommend voting Yes on June 2, 2026.
A school older than the town it’s in
Wade Thomas sits on what is, by some measures, the oldest continuously operating school site in San Anselmo. The first schoolhouse on this parcel (at the corner of Ross, Sunnyside, Woodland, and Kensington Avenues) opened in 1898 as San Anselmo School, serving 48 students in a single redwood building. As the town grew, a second story was added, and when Lansdale School opened in 1908 the building was renamed Main School.
In 1946, after a major retrofit, Main School was rededicated and renamed Wade Thomas Elementary in honor of the man who had been its principal beginning in 1923 and then RVSD’s superintendent until his sudden death shortly before the retrofit was completed. The community wanted the new building to carry his name. It still does, almost 80 years later.
That history matters here because the campus’s value to San Anselmo is not abstract. Wade Thomas is the school you can walk to from downtown. A five-minute walk from San Anselmo Avenue, four minutes from Memorial Park, two minutes from the Marin County Free Library on Bank Street. Generations of San Anselmo kids have walked these blocks to and from school. That walkability is the thing closures take away first.
What’s at Wade Thomas right now
A few specifics about the school as it is in 2026:
- Enrollment: approximately 315 TK–5 students. That makes it the largest of RVSD’s four elementaries by enrollment, with Manor, Brookside, and Hidden Valley serving roughly 230 to 300 each.
- Principal: Julie Harris.
- GreatSchools rating: 9/10. PublicSchoolReview ranks Wade Thomas in the top 5% of California elementary schools for combined math and reading proficiency (#276 of 9,523). The parcel tax is what keeps the staffing and class sizes that produce those scores.
- Specialists every student sees weekly: music, art, PE, library, and classroom technology integration — all funded in part by the parcel tax that Measure H renews.
- Murals: if you’ve walked past, you’ve seen them. Wade Thomas’s exterior murals are an unofficial part of downtown San Anselmo’s visual identity.
What Measure H specifically funds at Wade Thomas
Measure H is a qualified special tax, which means the ballot text legally restricts what RVSD can spend the money on.[1] The three permitted categories are: attracting and retaining qualified teachers; maintaining STEM, reading, and writing programs; and keeping class sizes manageable. The ballot text explicitly prohibits spending on administrator salaries.
Translated to a TK–5 campus the size of Wade Thomas, that means the parcel tax pays for:
- Classroom teacher compensation. RVSD teachers received no salary increase this year, not even a cost-of-living adjustment, because the district couldn’t afford one,[2] and RVSD pay sits at the bottom of Marin K-8 districts. Without parcel-tax revenue, the district can’t keep that compensation competitive against neighboring basic-aid districts like Mill Valley and Kentfield, which sit just over the hill and pay substantially more.[3]
- Class-size management. Wade Thomas runs roughly two sections per grade, generally with 20–25 students per class. The Tier 2 cuts in the contingency plan would force consolidation toward higher class sizes; Tier 3 closure would do so dramatically.
- Pull-out reading and math intervention. Specialist time for students who need extra support. Tier 2 of the contingency plan eliminates one instructional coach district-wide.[4]
- Music, art, PE, and library specialists. These are regular weekly classes for every Wade Thomas student, baked into the daily schedule.
Roughly 16% of RVSD’s general fund comes from the parcel tax.[5] Measure H is the renewal of that piece, plus a structural increase to close the gap between what the existing levy raised and what the district actually needs.
The closure-math conversation, honestly
The version of the closure conversation people tend to dismiss as campaign rhetoric is “vote Yes or your kid’s school closes.” That’s not what Measure H’s contingency plan actually says, and we want to be careful not to overstate it.
What the plan does say, on the record, is that if Measure H fails in June and again in November 2026 (leaving no successor parcel tax in place when the existing 2018 levy expires June 30, 2028), Tier 3 of the MCOE-required contingency plan kicks in: closure of two of four elementary schools and grade-level reconfiguration of the remaining schools, by August 2028.[4]
The plan doesn’t name which two would close. The district has deliberately not done so. But Wade Thomas’s place in the enrollment math cuts in two directions, and both matter:
- As a possible closure target. Closure analysts in any school district typically start with smallest-enrollment campuses, because consolidation is cleanest there. By that logic, Wade Thomas — at ~315 students, the largest elementary — is less likely to be on the closure list than a smaller campus. But “less likely” isn’t “unlikely.” If Wade Thomas does close, ~315 students have to be redistributed across receiving schools, which is the most disruptive closure of the four to execute.
- As the natural receiving school. If Tier 3 closes two smaller campuses, Wade Thomas’s central San Anselmo location and 1898-vintage building make it the obvious absorption point for displaced students. Brookside is 1.4 miles east on Butterfield; Hidden Valley is 2.5 miles into Sleepy Hollow; Wade Thomas sits at the geographic and walking center of San Anselmo. In a four-to-two consolidation, Wade Thomas’s enrollment likely climbs toward 500.
We’ve laid out the enrollment math in more detail elsewhere: going from four elementaries to three is the cleaner consolidation (each receiving ~380 students, well within typical capacity); going to two as Tier 3 specifies is the documented worst-case scenario in the plan, with the three-school consolidation the more defensible point estimate on the math.
But for Wade Thomas families specifically: there is no Tier 3 outcome where the school looks the way it does today. Either ~315 kids leave the building, or it absorbs displaced students from another campus.
Why a No vote on Measure H matters at Wade Thomas
Two reasons, plainly:
One, the largest elementary is the receiving campus most exposed to consolidation pressure. The 1898-vintage 150 Ross Avenue building wasn’t designed to be a 500-student school, and the downtown lot has limited room to grow. A Tier 3 absorption would push the building toward its real capacity limits.
Two, even in a Tier 2 scenario where no closures happen, Wade Thomas’s larger enrollment means more San Anselmo families are touched by the cuts than at any other RVSD elementary. Tier 2 cuts elementary PE, eliminates a coordinator position in special education and English-language development, and cuts an instructional coach.[4] With ~315 students, Wade Thomas has more kids losing weekly PE and more families touched by the SPED/ELD service reduction than any other elementary in the district.
A note on receivership. If RVSD’s reserves drop below state minimums and the district cannot pay its obligations, the state can appoint a state administrator with authority to override the local school board on closures, layoffs, and program reductions. Superintendent Tyler Graff has named August 2028 as the likely receivership date if Measure H fails twice.
[4]Receivership matters for Wade Thomas families because it removes the closure decision from the local board (including local parents) and puts it in the hands of a state appointee whose only mandate is fiscal stabilization.
What Yes on Measure H would do for Wade Thomas
The opposite picture, also concretely:
- Stable staffing. No reduction-in-force, no pink slips this spring, no scrambling to backfill departures.
- Class sizes hold. Two sections per grade, current ratios.
- Specialists stay. Music, art, PE, library, intervention.
- The campus stays open. With Measure H passed, the Tier 3 closure plan is shelved and RVSD’s reserves rebuild back toward state minimums.
- Teacher compensation has room to recover. The new revenue lets the district begin lifting pay back toward competitive ranges across the 10-year term of the levy, after this year’s no-raise contract.
We’ve made the broader budget case in our main case-for-Yes page: RVSD ranks 959th of 995 California districts on per-pupil state funding,[6] and even at $1,282 the proposed parcel tax would still be the lowest among Marin K-8 districts, well below Mill Valley ($1,520) and Kentfield ($1,842) at their current rates.[3] The Wade Thomas–specific point is just this: the largest RVSD elementary sits in the heart of downtown San Anselmo, on a site continuously occupied by a public school since 1898, and Measure H is what keeps that arrangement intact.
Where we land
The largest of RVSD’s four elementaries anchors downtown San Anselmo on a site continuously occupied by a public school since 1898. There is no Tier 3 outcome where 150 Ross Avenue looks the way it does today — either ~315 kids leave the building, or it absorbs displaced students from another campus. A Yes vote on Measure H is what keeps the existing arrangement intact.
For these reasons, we recommend voting Yes on Measure H on June 2.
How to vote
Election Day is Tuesday, June 2, 2026. Marin County mails ballots to every registered voter in early May. You can:
- Return your ballot by mail (postmarked by June 2)
- Drop it in any Marin County drop box (closest to Wade Thomas is at San Anselmo Town Hall on Tunstead Avenue)
- Vote in person at the San Anselmo polling location
Full deadlines and drop-box locations are at the Marin County Elections Department. Homeowners 65+ are exempt from the parcel tax — the exemption form is on the RVSD site, and existing exemptees do not need to reapply.