GUSD board to provide $1.4 million to fund construction at local
charter school
Gilroy – The classrooms are small. The facility is aging. And there’s no place for recreation.
That’s why Principal Noemi Garcia Reyes is excited about the future of her school, Mexican American Community Services Agency El Portal Leadership Academy Charter School.
“I feel that once we secure a permanent school site in the Gilroy community, I think the school will be viewed as permanent and that’s (been) one of the biggest challenges,” she said. “Facilities have definitely been a challenge throughout the last four years as it is with most charter schools.”
The 4-year-old school, designed to educate struggling students, is currently housed in facilities leased from the Gilroy Unified School District. With funds secured from both GUSD and the state, El Portal plans to move prefabricated buildings onto the now-vacant parking lot adjacent to South Valley Middle School’s football field.
The parking lot backs up to El Portal’s current facility, located on Swanston Lane in northeast Gilroy. The new facility, which should be ready by fall of 2006, will include 12 classrooms and an office. The classrooms will surround a central quad.
At the district’s Jan. 19 meeting, the GUSD board unanimously approved to provide $1.4 million of the school’s construction. The charter school has projected a total cost of $1.67 million for the first phase of the project.
El Portal, MACSA and GUSD officials are working together to secure funds from the state to cover the remainder of the construction costs.
In the second phase, they plan to build a multipurpose room, which should occur within the next three years, Reyes said. Phase three will be a MACSA community center.
The MACSA community center will house a variety of programs such as Even Start, an afterschool tutoring and an abstinence program.
“The goal is for all of these programs to be housed under one roof,” Reyes said. “So that’s the overall vision.”
Currently El Portal’s campus consists of four portables and eight classrooms. There are actually nine classrooms in the main building but one was too small to teach in, so it’s used as a student study room.
Marimonte Rodriguez, lead teacher at El Portal, said the new facilities will give the campus a more cohesive feel, since the classrooms will all surround a central quad.
“We’re excited to be in a bigger facility,” she said. “And to be able to stretch out a bit.”
El Portal’s current enrollment of 154 will increase when the school expands from three grades to four next school year. The new campus will ultimately accommodate a capacity of 330 students.
GUSD granted El Portal a charter in 2000. Charter schools are created when a group of parents, teachers or community leaders contract with a local school district, county board of education or the state. The contract or “charter” spells out the school’s plans and goals.
Although charter schools are publicly funded institutions, they operate independently from the school district and are exempt from most of the state laws governing school districts but the public entity that approved the charter is required to oversee the institutions and reserve the right to revoke their charters.
