When about 670 students show up at Christopher High School in 16
days, it’s the school that won’t be fully prepared.
When about 670 students show up at Christopher High School in 16 days, it’s the school that won’t be fully prepared.
Several aspects of the school, including the gym and parts of the road around the school, will not be completed by opening day, said Principal John Perales. It will take an additional six months or more before the Gilroy Unified School District finishes the $123 million first phase of the school, at the corner of West Day Road and Santa Teresa Boulevard in north Gilroy. The $55 million second phase will add a wing of classrooms and a performing arts center, and increase the school’s capacity to 1,800. Until then, the show must and will go on, Perales said.
“We could teach classes today,” Perales said as he walked around a nearly finished science lab. Aside from the dusty countertops and the absence of books and furniture – move-in day isn’t until later this week – the empty lab appeared ready for students.
About three dozen members of the school’s inaugural leadership class were scheduled to tour the school Friday, but the tour was canceled for safety concerns, Perales said.
“I felt bad because they were bummed out,” he said. “I’m 99 percent sure that no one would get hurt but I don’t want to gamble on that 1 percent.”
Curving lines and plentiful skylights give the campus an airy, modernistic feel. In an attempt to steer away from the cold, institutional decor characteristic of many public facilities, CHS’s interior is paneled with warm, maple-colored wood and sleek metal fixtures.
While the majority of the classrooms and outdoor fields require only a few finishing touches, completion of the gym, library and cafeteria will command a significant amount of man hours in order to open on time. The general contractor is working around the clock to make sure that happens, Perales said.
Crews worked diligently in the cavernous gym Friday morning. Projects like installing the gym’s hardwood flooring, building the school’s aquatics center and tennis courts, and constructing the large canopy designed to shade the outdoor dining area and amphitheater will take place throughout the rest of the year and construction crews will work around the school schedule to create as few interruptions as possible, Perales said.
In addition, a stadium is not planned for CHS unless the school comes up with an estimated $5 million, Perales said. CHS football players will use GHS’s stadium for games.
Perales blamed bureaucratic red tape, not lack of funds, for the delays.
The most visible display of the school’s ongoing construction are the torn up roads and traffic delays along Santa Teresa Boulevard between Sunrise Drive and West Day Road. The school district is making more than $5 million in traffic improvements to improve circulation around CHS. Crews are installing three traffic lights and building a road that will connect West Day Road with a footbridge to Tapestry Drive in the neighborhood off Sunrise Drive. An extension of East Day will serve as a driveway into the school and complete the traffic loop around CHS. Crews will also widen Santa Teresa and West Day.
According to a letter sent to parents, the pedestrian footbridge will not be ready by the first day of school. Instead, a shuttle will meet students at the corner of Cooper Place and Sunrise Drive starting at 7:30 a.m. and loop back until the last student is transported. The shuttle will drop students off on the same corner after school. Perales expects the bridge to be ready by early September.
“Road work is always a concern,” Perales said. “You never know what they might dig up.”
He plans to be out in front of the school directing traffic on the first day of school along with staff, parents and several volunteer police officers, he said.
“It’s a nightmare out there right now,” said CHS parent Christine De Carlo. “But I have the utmost confidence that everything will get all worked out in no time.”
The De Carlos, who live about two miles away from CHS near Welburn Avenue and Westwood Drive, will encourage their son Tyler to walk or ride his bike to school after the initial confusion dies down. Until then, the family will drive the freshman to the shuttle.
“The first day at a brand new school always brings with it a little bit of controlled chaos,” De Carlo said.
With that in mind, the first two days of school will be all business, said CHS Activities Director Gloria Hennessy. An opening ceremony celebration is planned for October, after much of the last-minute construction is ironed out, Hennessy said.
“We want it to be huge,” she said, adding that President Barack Obama is among dignitaries invited.
In the meantime, “we have so much to convey those first few days and we don’t want to interrupt that,” she said. “Academics come first.”
Perales and Assistant Principal Patricia Jolly plan to greet each classroom individually, Hennessy said.
The leadership students will tour the campus Aug. 10. Sophomores pick up their schedules Aug. 11 and freshmen Aug. 12. A student and parent barbecue will be held Aug. 16 with guided tours by the leadership students.
Excited to explore their new campus, incoming sophomores Juliana Vanni, 15, and Jessica Peterson, 15, said they were honored to meet Don and Karen Christopher, the school’s namesakes. Formerly students at Monte Vista Christian School, the two girls joined about 40 other leadership students Friday for a workshop at the Gilroy Police Department that included a question and answer session with the Christophers and group-building activities. The group of students made their way around the room, writing ideas on large sheets of paper tacked to the walls, under headings, such as “Traditions I’d like to see at CHS” and “People I’d like to thank.”
“I can’t wait to see them see it,” Hennessy said of students coming to the campus. “What they’re about to do is a huge, wonderful, important thing.”
