Long-awaited SPHS Science/Tech buildings finally open after months of delay

The new Science/Technology buildings at Santa Paula High School, first expected to open last summer, have just now opened their doors for students.

Classrooms greeted students for the first time. The two buildings were built on 5th Street, across from the baseball field. They are located where the old 500 buildings used to stand. A food services facility is still under construction and is expected to alleviate the sometimes long lines at the cafeteria.

Contractor Joe Columbo said he didn’t have a lot of excuses in not meeting the deadline for completion of the new buildings. Columbo appeared before the Santa Paula Unified School District board at their first meeting of October. The buildings were originally scheduled to open on July 1. That deadline was extended to November 1 but Columbo told the board that deadline would not be met as well. He said then that the school could start moving in on December 1, but the buildings wouldn’t be open for classes until December 29.

Funding for the new buildings comes from the 39 million dollar bond measure, approved by voters in 2008. Some of that money also went to the renovation of the SPHS football field. In addition, the district received almost 5 million dollars from the State under the Overcrowding Relief Grant program. The grant money will be used to augment funding for the new building and thereby free up Bond funds for other unfunded projects.

During construction the old issue of parking around the high school came to a head, especially from residents on Palm Court and other surrounding streets. Because of the construction there was no longer any parking on the campus, pushing staff and visitors to park in nearby neighborhoods. Superintendent Alfonso Gamino said, “We have plenty of parking spaces, so for our day-to-day parking that issue in my opinion has gone away.” He noted that there is now more parking on 5th Street, a parking lot adjacent to the new buildings and parking on Santa Paula Street in front of the tennis courts. “We feel we have plenty of parking at this time,” he added. He said that they still need to look at solutions for major events at the school, such as football games. Before construction there were 72 parking spaces. Now they have 78 spaces on campus. 

Joint City Council/Governing Board Meetings are scheduled to discuss parking and other issues. Also, the board recently approved paying the costs of a traffic study surrounding Santa Paula High School. The tab is put at $22,735. The study will include an inventory of the street network in the vicinity of the high school, traffic and pedestrian volumes (counts will be conducted during peak weekday school traffic periods and during athletic or other high attendance activities), and preparation of a list of potential improvements. The study will take place this month. The school district and city will receive a draft report to comment on before a final report is issued.