Kennedy High town hall set for Thursday as WCCUSD weighs student relocation

West Contra Costa Unified School District will hold a community town hall meeting Thursday on the environmental testing that led to the closure of Kennedy High School, with officials from the state Department of Toxic Substances Control and the City of Richmond expected to take part.

WCCUSD's school year begins August 18. Superintendent Cheryl Cotton said in a statement Tuesday that the district is considering options to temporarily relocate the Kennedy community so the school year can start on time. The statement didn't name a location or say when a decision would come.

If you go: Thursday, August 6, 6:30 p.m. to 8 p.m., Richmond Memorial Auditorium, 403 Civic Center Plaza, Richmond. Doors open at 6 p.m. The district plans to livestream the meeting on its YouTube channel.

Cotton announced the meeting in the same statement, saying DTSC and the city would join the district to discuss the ongoing testing.

WCCUSD closed the campus to all staff and students Monday after preliminary tests found the chemical tetrachloroethylene, also known as PCE, beneath the campus. The school board approved the underground vapor testing at its July 15 meeting, following a recommendation from DTSC. The district's executive team received the preliminary results Friday, July 31, showing varying PCE levels beneath the school, according to Cotton's statement.

"Following consultation with DTSC and other agencies on the morning of Monday, August 3, and out of an abundance of caution, WCCUSD made the determination to restrict entry to the Kennedy campus until further environmental testing has been completed and analyzed," Cotton wrote.

Kennedy had 625 students during the 2025-26 school year, according to Ed-Data, the state's official school data clearinghouse, down from 825 two years earlier.

The closure also forced a change to the district's own meeting schedule. In a letter to the community Tuesday, Board President Guadalupe Enllana said Wednesday's regular board meeting would be postponed to August 12. She also said she hadn't been told about the closure decision until Monday, the same day it was announced.

"I want to be clear that I was not made aware of this decision until Monday," Enllana wrote. "I am learning this information in real time alongside our community and, at this moment, I do not have additional answers beyond what has been publicly shared."

Enllana said the board couldn't take up the closure at Wednesday's meeting because the decision came after the agenda had already been posted, a requirement under the state's open-meeting law, the Brown Act. She said the district plans to invite DTSC and the City of Richmond officials to the rescheduled meeting.

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