New Building at SJHHS Announced

Parking will be impacted in the short-run

The+new+building+will+be+located+behind+the+C+building+and+eliminate+most+parking+in+that+lot.+The+roundabout+will+be+removed+to+add+additional+spaces.

Courtesy CUSD

The new building will be located behind the “C” building and eliminate most parking in that lot. The roundabout will be removed to add additional spaces.

A new building will be added to SJHHS in what is now a student parking lot, temporarily reducing the amount of available parking for the 2016-17 school year.

The project, executed in phases, will begin this summer and the building will be ready for the 2018-19 school year, according to district officials.

The building will be two-stories with 12 classrooms on each floor, a total of 24 classrooms. All of the classrooms will have indoor entrances, unlike our current H Building where students enter from outside.

Two other high schools, Tesoro and San Clemente, will also get the same structure added to their campuses.

The purpose of the new buildings are to even out the populations at the surrounding schools. San Juan Hills is expected to gain 300-400 additional students over the next few years after the road to La Pata opens up, according the Jennifer Smalley, SJHHS Principal.

“By putting classrooms at our school, San Clemente, and Tesoro High School they’re hoping that [students] will be able to go where the want to go,” said Smalley.

The first phase involves tearing out the round-a-bout and creating additional parking there. The current student parking lot behind the C building will be closed off to students during the construction.

Naturally student parking will be impacted in the next few years, but after construction is completed there will be a total of 80 new parking spots over what we have now, according to district projections.

“Even though we will loose spots during construction, at the end of the project we will gain 80 new parking spots,” said Darrin Jindra, Assistant Principal.

But if the classrooms fill to capacity it could expand the size of the school by over 700 students, according projections made by The Express, leaving many wondering where students and teachers will park.

One solution currently being explored is an arrangement with The LDS Church, who bought the parcel of land near the baseball field. CUSD is currently in talks with the church to share parking lots, with students using LDS lots during the week and LDS members using SJHHS lots on Sundays and perhaps other days.

However, construction of the church is not slated to begin in time to meet the current need for additional parking.

Additionally, the La Pata Gap Closure (the road between SJHHS and Talega) is supposed to open next fall, right at time when parking will be short supply due to the new construction.