New GHS student center will help lunch run smoothly and provide
plenty of shade for students on hot Gilroy days
Gilroy – With its A-frame roof, exposed cathedral ceilings and expansive windows, the new student center looks like it belongs on a ski resort. But fortunately, for the City of Gilroy, the facility graces the Gilroy High School campus, not Squaw Valley.
“It’s beautiful,” said Assistant Principal Greg Camacho-Light. “Now we just have to maintain it.”
A chain-link fence still surrounds the building as workers finish moving and connecting kitchen equipment, and other last minute touches. The Associated Student Body and counseling department moved into offices in the facility about a month ago.
Next weekend, staff will transfer all the remaining equipment from the old cafeteria to the new and on May 22, it should be open for business. The 40,000-square-foot building, funded by the $69-million bond Measure I, cost the district an estimated $10.7 million and will serve mainly as the school cafeteria.
The food court and serving area back up to a large kitchen with a walk-in freezer and food storage areas. The area where students currently pick up hot lunches is “tentatively scheduled to be an expansion of the weight room,” said Principal James Maxwell.
The “tentative” needs to be emphasized because although the plan is to build a new weight room since the current one is not large enough, one never knows if they’ll be enough money, Maxwell said.
“I think everything is up for possibility,” Maxwell said. “They really wanted to get in and serve food out of the cafeteria.”
Assistant Superintendent Steve Brinkman said the district is already planning to use four of the five serving windows in the old cafeteria and put a door in place of the fifth window. Under the overhangs of the new facility, they will place food carts on the north and south ends.
Also, the last he heard from Superintendent Edwin Diaz, was that the old serving area will be turned into a physical education area, complete with weight training room and classroom.
In addition to the cafeteria, the new student center also contains offices, an employee area and an abundance of indoor and outdoor seating. With temperatures rising, the shaded area under the low-slung roof, peppered with black picnic tables, is bound to attract students. Outside seating will accommodate 400 students, while the interior has room for 640.
During the rainy season and the hot days before school lets out, Camacho-Light expects to see more students utilize the inside space and the exterior during the pleasantly warm months of spring. The new facility is expected to help alleviate the packed lunchtime crowd at the 2,600 population school.
Staffers say the extra space will give students more room to spread out and give lunch workers more room to serve such a mass of students. But in addition to lightening the lunchtime load, the student center should bring in extra revenue for the district since clubs and other local groups are bound to book reservations at the brand-new facility.
The school district will be able to host events at the student center free of charge, but other groups will have to pay a fee, which has not yet been determined. Although groups won’t be able to serve alcohol on the premises since it’s a public school, Maxwell expects to see a healthy interest in the facility.
On Thursday, chairs were being arranged for the premiere event in the new facility: a ceremony for teachers from Gilroy, Hollister, Santa Cruz and Aromas, who earned their master’s through a joint program between the Gilroy Unified School District and San Jose State University.
Later this month, GUSD will host its awards ceremony in the student center and in June, the high school will stage its career fair. On June 7, the district is hosting a dinner for retiring staff in the student center and the next day the GHS choir will perform there.
And, apparently the facility is much more than simply a place to eat.
“It has fabulous acoustics,” Camacho-Light said. “It’s like a cathedral.”
