GILROY
– Due to surplus bond funds, the school district will provide
South Valley Middle School with a grassy quad, a new bus
turn-around and a modernized library sooner than expected.
By Lori Stuenkel
GILROY – Due to surplus bond funds, the school district will provide South Valley Middle School with a grassy quad, a new bus turn-around and a modernized library sooner than expected.
The district will use part of an extra $6.4 million from Measure J bond funds to complete the projects at the 385 I.O.O.F. Ave. school before next fall. The bus turn-around with a staff parking area will cost about $500,000 but the cost of the other projects is still undetermined.
Thanks to a favorable economic climate for construction bids, completing the projects sooner rather than later could save the district money. The work was included in the district’s 25-year Facilities Master Plan, but a definite completion date was not set.
“We can take advantage of a more favorable business environment in terms of getting contractors,” said Gary Corlett, construction manager. “And everything is cheaper now with the way the economy is, so we can take advantage of that.”
The projects can also move forward thanks to more construction personnel, Corlett said. He and Construction Manager Jan Jensen joined Gilroy Unified School District in June.
“The way that the scheduling was originally done, it was just scheduled out without having the additional manpower resources that we have today,” Corlett said. “We’re able to take advantage of the additional capacity that we have for managing projects, and push these projects forward.”
South Valley’s quad area, now consisting of cement, trees and patches of dirt, will get a face-lift this summer.
“My main concern is having a nice place for the kids to eat,” Principal Paul De Ayora told district officials and school board members during a facilities study session on Dec. 15.
When it rains, De Ayora said, students will walk through or eat their lunch standing in mud, even though they could eat in the cafeteria.
“In trying to get the schools comparable to one another, something has to be done with the landscaping here at South Valley,” he said. “Especially when you compare it to the new (Ascencion) Solorsano.”
The new quad, currently being designed by a landscape architect, will boast flowers and grass. The project will require cement removal to plant the grass and install sprinkler tubing.
The parent club has talked for years about a quad improvement project, De Ayora said, and even discussed using some of its resources to beautify the area with plants and flowers.
Lisa Ready, parent club president, said parents will be involved in the district’s landscape planning.
“The goal is to make it an inviting place for the kids to hang out, because that’s where they meet when they’re not in class,” Ready said. “Right now, it’s desolate and muddy and so the goal is to transform it.”
As part of the quad beautification, some of the school’s history as Gilroy’s high school, before the current high school on Princevalle Street, will be preserved. Graduating classes cemented commemorative plaques into the quad’s walkways. When the cement is torn up to install a sprinkler system, the plaques will likely be removed and put on display.
“We’d like to kind of … set it off to the side and make it a special place for those who graduated here,” De Ayora said, noting that “a whole bunch of folks” well-known to the community graduated from South Valley, including Superintendent Edwin Diaz and Solorsano Principal Sal Tomasello.
The Measure J surplus and slow economy are also timely because the district will build a new bus turnaround and parking lot at South Valley to accommodate construction on a new campus for El Portal Leadership Academy.
The Mexican American Community Services Agency, which runs the charter high school, has told the district it plans to build a permanent classroom wing at its new location near Community Day School, at 275 I.O.O.F. Ave.
To fit the new building, GUSD must move its existing bus access east of its current location next to Community Day. Construction on the new building for El Portal, which will have 14 classrooms, is scheduled to begin next spring, sooner than GUSD anticipated.
De Ayora said he is excited for the new bus access and staff parking.
“It’s going to be a major change for our parking in there,” he said. “The busses can have access to the campus a little easier, the maintenance trucks can have access to the campus a little easier and that will allow MACSA … to have their own parking.
“That’s really going to help us with our traffic here in the morning and after school.”
The middle school’s library modernization will also be completed next summer.
Another project that will be completed sooner than expected is the relocation of The Health Trust from Eliot Elementary School’s Seventh Street campus to the South Valley campus. Health Trust provides low cost health care to low-income and under-served children. The $289,000 relocation will be funded by Measure J.
Other projects pushed forward include the replacement of portable classrooms at El Roble, Glen View and Rucker elementary schools. The district is in the process of removing older portables as part of an agreement with the state to receive funding for Antonio Del Buono. The portables at El Roble and Glen View will be removed to accommodate new multipurpose rooms. The Rucker portables are being replaced by permanent classrooms.
The school board will award contracts for the South Valley projects after plans are approved and work put out to bid.
