The push to help Escondido high school students succeed is gaining some new space and visibility.
Work under way at Escondido, Orange Glen and San Pasqual high schools will give each campus a modern, separate building with resources for college and career research, and materials to support both struggling and accelerated students.
JOHN GASTALDO / Union-Tribune
Contractors worked on removing Escondido High's semicircular front driveway along North Broadway last month. Crews are making way for a learning center.
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Courtesy of NTD Architecture
The learning center at San Pasqual High School will be squeezed between the B and C buildings on the north rim of campus, off Mary Lane.
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The three “learning centers” will be equipped for special, computer-assisted instruction. They also will become the home base for students pursuing independent studies.
The Escondido Union High School District is spending $7.6 million on construction of the buildings. When they open in for the 2009-10 school year, officials say, they will improve access to broader educational offerings, a goal that they predict ultimately will be reflected in student performance.
“The dropout rate from high school will go down and you'll close that achievement gap,” said Barbara Gauthier, director of educational services. “More kids will be succeeding because you're delivering instruction with more flexibility. And hopefully, more kids will go to college.”
A high school does not normally have a lot of leftover space, so it was a challenge to find room for a 5,600-square-foot building on not one but three campuses. Easy access and minimal disruption to other school operations were priorities.
At Escondido High, a driveway is being removed. At Orange Glen, some offices are being relocated.
The project's start date was July 1, but the site work is still at an early stage. Mike Wise, the district's construction project manager, said framing should go up around the end of August or beginning of September, a few weeks after the Aug. 11 kickoff to the school year.
The buildings are scheduled to be finished by March 1.
JOHN GASTALDO / Union-Tribune
Utility worker Mike Sherman marked the pavement with spray paint as a loader broke up the concrete last month at Escondido High School.
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The single-story structures at each school will share major characteristics. Each will have a central library/media center and a computer lab, a study area and a conference room. Main rooms will make use of natural light to reduce energy costs.
The district drew some inspiration for the centers from the Sweetwater Union High School District, which reconditioned older buildings to serve purposes similar to those of the learning centers, Escondido Superintendent Ed Nelson said.
For its new buildings, the Escondido district didn't want a cookie-cutter approach. Its architect, NTD Architecture, designed each learning center to match the surrounding campuses – a brick veneer at Escondido High, a blue roof at Orange Glen, a pyramid-shaped hip roof at San Pasqual.
Here's a capsule look at each site:
Escondido High: The district investigated “every possible spot on this campus,” Wise said, including the basketball courts at the rear of the campus. It settled on a spot up front, looking onto the same courtyard that faces the school's administrative offices.
Contractors are removing the school's semicircular front driveway along North Broadway, previously used for student pickup and drop-off. Wise said entrances and exits for a parking lot just to the north will be widened to allow for smoother traffic flow, and a red zone immediately in front of the school entrance will be removed to allow quick stops.
The driveway's removal also means a less-hazardous walk onto campus for pedestrians dropped off along Broadway, Wise said.
Orange Glen High: The learning center will replace a teachers workroom and Associated Students offices now housed in a portable module adjacent to the food-service building. An extension to the administration building will make up some of the lost space, and the portable module will be used elsewhere at the school.
San Pasqual High: The new building will be squeezed between the B and C buildings on the north rim of campus, off Mary Lane.
The completion of the learning centers means the end of Center City High downtown, which has been home to students enrolled in the district's independent studies program. The school will be closed at the end of the 2008-09 school year.
Gauthier said many other students will find themselves using the new buildings.
The computer centers will assist students with online learning. The college/career center will help students plan their post-high-school lives, with assistance for navigating the college-application process.
There will be resources for “credit recovery,” to help students who are behind in their requirements for graduation.
And the centers will house the schools' life-skills curriculum, assisting those who need help with time management or decision-making.
Jeff Ristine: (760) 737-7578;
jeff.ristine@uniontrib.com
