GILROY
– El Portal Leadership Academy is opening enrollment for the
2004-05 school year, but some of the charter high school’s students
may need to be housed off-campus if all the spots fill up.
By Lori Stuenkel
GILROY – El Portal Leadership Academy is opening enrollment for the 2004-05 school year, but some of the charter high school’s students may need to be housed off-campus if all the spots fill up.
Space is currently available in grades 9, 10 and 12, although the school will not have an 11th grade next year.
El Portal is enrolling students who are looking for a holistic approach to education that, with personalized learning plans, maximizes student achievement and leadership development, according to school officials. The school seeks to develop underachieving students into eligible college-bound students.
Construction on the school’s new building, which was expected to start July 1, has not begun, meaning the facility will not be open with the start of classes this fall.
“There’s no work going on yet,” said Charlie Van Meter, Gilroy Unified School District’s director of facilities, planning and construction. “In the revised schedule, it appears the construction will be complete and (the building will be) ready for occupancy in January ’05, but they’re going to do everything they can to expedite construction to get it done sooner than that.”
The problem is El Portal’s plans for a two-story classroom building next to its current 240 Swanston Lane location are still not back from the state, Van Meter said. Gilroy’s only charter school, which is loosely overseen by the GUSD, announced late last year it would build a new facility this year and two future phases of the expansion will include a community center and a gymnasium.
School officials and representatives of the Mexican American Community Services Agency (MACSA), which runs the school, had anticipated completing the building by the start of school, then later pushed that back to mid-September.
The 133 freshmen and juniors now occupy five permanent classrooms and four portables moved to the site from Eliot Elementary School. The new permanent facility will be a two-story modular building that is largely prefabricated and assembled on site.
The school has several alternatives, should it achieve full enrollment and have too little space for students, including holding some classes in the Salvation Army building at 200 Fifth St., said Esther Corral-Carlson, GUSD’s liaison to El Portal.
If El Portal can enroll full classes for all three grade levels next year, it would have 240 students, significantly more than last year’s 133. The new building will initially house 260 students.
For more enrollment information, contact Tomas Hernandez at 846-1715.
Space is limited.
