The Petaluma City Schools board of trustees voted 3-1 to approve a design-build agreement for a $13.2 million learning facility at McDowell Elementary School, clearing the way for a new dual-language immersion academy building that will rise on what is currently a Little League field on the campus. Trustee Ellen Webster was absent from the vote, and Trustee Ryan Williams cast the lone dissenting vote.
A Years-Long Plan Reaches a Vote
The project has been discussed publicly since early 2024, according to The Press Democrat, and was included in the district's pre-bond planning report and facilities master plan. The outreach process involved two community meetings, a McDowell PTA meeting, nearly half a dozen city meetings, and ongoing discussions with Little League leaders, the newspaper reported. The $13.2 million price tag will be funded through Measure Z, the $70 million general obligation bond that Petaluma City Elementary School District voters approved in November 2024, according to Petaluma City Schools.
Superintendent Davina Goldwasser said the planned facility site sits between the existing blacktop play area and the street, with drop-off access from street frontage, per the district's account to the Press Democrat's report. She also said the project involves only the field on the McDowell campus itself — the neighboring field at McDowell Park, which the city of Petaluma notes is home to Murphy Field and Petaluma Valley Little League, will remain unchanged. Goldwasser added that solar panels on campus restricted where the building could be placed, and the chosen site allows for separate pickup and drop-off zones for the elementary school and the language academy.
Little League's Three Decades on the Field
Petaluma Valley Little League has used one of two baseball fields on district-owned land for 30 years, the Press Democrat reported. In response, the district offered the league alternative locations for games and practices, including suggesting use of a field at Casa Grande High School. Chief Business Officer Amanda Bonivert said the league expressed interest in possibly using the sand fields at Casa, according to the same report.
District officials also said they made design concessions during the planning process: a parking lot was removed from the development plans to accommodate the league, and a school building was relocated to preserve Little League access along with city storage and batting cages. Goldwasser said the district's goal is a long-term lease with the city of Petaluma for continued use of the area, plus roughly four feet of district property beyond the existing fence line.
A Trustee's Lingering Concerns
Not everyone on the board was satisfied with how those tradeoffs were resolved. Williams said his concerns about removing a playing field without a finalized solution in place had gone unaddressed for more than six months, according to the Press Democrat's account of the meeting. Board President Mady Cloud said residents living near the project — including those without children enrolled in the district — should be kept informed about the facility's impacts, and she noted that growing enrollment is already increasing traffic congestion during pickup and drop-off and will add further demand.
That enrollment growth is notable at McDowell specifically: the school saw a 7.2% enrollment increase for the 2026-27 school year even as district leaders described overall enrollment across Petaluma City Schools, which totals 7,551 students, as stable, the Press Democrat reported in September. Some of that growth traces to the campus's Spanish dual-language immersion program, which Petaluma City Schools has expanded to include transitional kindergarten and sixth grade. The program already served kindergarten through fifth grade and seventh and eighth grade, teaching academic subjects in both Spanish and English, according to the district's own description of the McDowell offering.
What the New Building Will Hold
The new facility is intended to serve seventh- and eighth-grade students enrolled in the campus's language academy and will include classrooms, restrooms, offices, a multipurpose common area, and outdoor learning and gathering spaces. Trustee Caitlin Quinn said she was excited to see what happens with the project, per the Press Democrat's reporting on the board meeting.
The McDowell project is expected to break ground in July 2027. District leaders plan to hold a public meeting to discuss the project on Tuesday, Nov. 10, at 5:30 p.m. at McDowell Elementary School, located at 421 S. McDowell Blvd. in Petaluma.
Part of a Larger $229 Million Push
McDowell's new building is one piece of a much bigger facilities effort. The Petaluma City Schools board approved a $229 million construction and facilities-upgrade implementation plan by unanimous vote in December, with the program drawing $159 million from Measure AA for middle and high schools and $70 million from Measure Z for elementary schools, the Press Democrat has reported separately. District officials have said bond funds from Measure Z cannot be used to pay teachers, additional staff or mental-health support, since the funding is restricted to construction and modernization purposes. The district anticipates that projects funded by currently available bond dollars will take roughly five to seven years to complete, according to the Petaluma Argus-Courier, with the broader program expected to wrap by 2033.
Other projects are already underway or on the horizon under that bond umbrella. The Mary Collins School at Cherry Valley project, which began at the end of the last school year, covers an 8,900-square-foot expansion into adjacent district-owned Cherry Valley Park. Separately, the district is weighing a proposed $40 million Crinella Performing Arts Center adjacent to Casa Grande High School, which would occupy a 15-acre open space along Crinella Drive and could include a 500-seat theater, according to the Argus-Courier's earlier coverage. Measure Z spending across the district remains subject to public disclosure requirements, an independent Citizens' Oversight Committee and mandatory annual audits, per Petaluma City Schools, and state law bars district employees, officials, vendors, contractors or consultants from serving on that oversight panel.
