In 10 years, Gilroy’s public school landscape will include a
second, state of the art, high school and a ninth elementary
school.
In 10 years, Gilroy’s public school landscape will include a second, state of the art high school and a ninth elementary school.
Additional projects scheduled for the next decade include a new wing of classrooms at Las Animas Elementary School, an educational center at Mount Madonna Continuation High School servicing students, adults, pre-schoolers and infants, and a facelift of Glen View Elementary School. The projects will be funded largely by Measure P, the $150 million school tax Gilroy voters authorized in November.
Measure P will provide Mount Madonna with $10 million and Glen View will benefit from $6 million plus matching state funds to modernize two wings of classrooms, the office and the parking lots. The school currently houses 15 portables, which ties with Rod Kelley for the most in the district, according to a presentation by Roger Cornia, Gilroy Unified School District enrollment coordinator. Measure P will provide Las Animas Elementary with $3 million for a new wing of classrooms and four other elementary schools – Antonio del Buono, Rucker, Rod Kelley and Luigi Aprea – with $100,000 each to modernize facilities. Those schools will receive additional Measure P funds after the planning process is complete, said Enrique Palacios, deputy superintendent of business services.
In total, more than $173 million will be plowed back into local public school facilities in the next 10 years, with $121 million coming from Measure P. The difference will come from state dollars and other local funds. The money comes just in time to overhaul some of Gilroy’s oldest schools and erect new ones to accommodate the district’s burgeoning student population.
With an unexpected 4 percent growth rate at the elementary school level – the district’s demographer predicted only a 2 percent growth rate this year – a new elementary school, or an alternative solution, is high on the board’s list of priorities. At a recent study session, trustees reviewed the district’s 10-year facilities plan and discussed the future of Gilroy’s elementary school students.
“We’re in a strange situation because of the economy,” Cornia told the board.
According to Cornia, more families are renting, moving in together or moving in with relatives to cope with lost jobs and the foreclosure crisis. As a result, developer fees, which the district has counted on in the past to fund new growth, are nowhere to be found, he said. Program Improvement schools – or schools with a history of not performing up to state testing standards – further complicate the matter. Parents have the option to remove their students from these schools and place them in schools that do meet yearly academic performance standards. With four elementary schools – Rucker, Eliot, El Roble and Rod Kelley – in PI status, students are shifting from one attendance area to another, Cornia said.
“It’s getting very hard to predict the number of students who will be attending each school,” he said. “It’s getting tighter and tighter at the (kindergarten) through five levels.”
A new elementary school runs about $20 million, Palacios said. But purchasing and developing land could tack an additional $5 to $10 million onto the price tag. The district could avoid that additional expense by building on the old Las Animas Elementary School site at 8450 Wren Ave., Palacios said. That site, a stone’s throw away from two other district elementary schools, is “good to go,” he said. But board members are wary of building on a site that’s far from any of Gilroy’s expected growth.
Though Palacios is anxious to get moving on plans for a new elementary school, board members only crossed two options off the list of eight solutions to the elementary school enrollment growth spurt.
Building at the farm property off Kern Avenue in north Gilroy or building near Brownell or South Valley middle schools are no longer options.
“It’s a stone’s throw away from (Antonio Del Buono),” Trustee Denise Apuzzo said of the farm’s location. “We really don’t need an elementary school there. Plus, we would be doing away with the school farm.”
Though the elementary school option received the most discussion, Phase I and II of Christopher High School received the most money. More than $13 million from Measure P and an additional $6.6 million in joint use funding from the city will finish off Phase I of the new high school, set to open this fall. An additional $19.2 million from Measure P and a state match will build Phase II of CHS. And more than a fifth of Measure P funds will be used to pay off the debt the district accrued from selling certificates of participation to help fund CHS.
Palacios said the plan was a conservative estimate of the district’s revenues over the next 10 years. He did not factor developer fees or proceeds from the sale of properties into the mix.
“The reason why we’re not speculating on these two particular revenue sources is that we don’t want the district to find itself in the same position as it did two years ago with phantom revenues funding CHS,” he said.
Each of Gilroy’s schools, the district office, the maintenance department and the transportation yard will receive Measure P funds. Only Eliot and the T.J. Owens Gilroy Early College Academy at Gavilan College will not immediately get a piece of the pie. Eliot is a brand new school with no current facility needs and the early college academy, which is housed at Gavilan College, is undergoing a program and master schedule review to determine classroom utilization.
At the last board meeting, trustees authorized the construction of the Las Animas wing and the district’s bid announcement for the project. Palacios expects to have the project completed by the fall.
