Lea este articulo en español aquí.
The San Benito High School District held a community town hall Jan. 18 as part of its planning to build a second high school. Over 80 county residents participated in new design activities led by representatives from HMC Architects, which was hired to design and plan the new high school.
“Tonight is a focus on feedback, input, the engagement with the community and the information that we have received over months of outreach,” SBHSD Superintendent Shawn Tennenbaum said. “That is synthesized into a product; that product is guiding our design.”
Guests took part in two activities: adding input to image boards and building their version of the new school’s design. HMC used community feedback from the district’s 12 town halls and listening sessions held starting in August to determine the building materials for the design. The feedback asked for a new high school with enough space, equitable opportunities for students, a safe school culture, natural beauty, community connection and fiscal responsibility.
Participants were divided into five groups, each led by an HMC representative, to design their version of the new school using three-dimensional building materials. Each group worked on a generic property to place outdoor field areas, parking, physical education areas, administration buildings and classrooms. Materials to show the placement of trees, walking paths and areas of water were also used.
Hollister High School junior Eduardo Rosas said he enjoyed the process.
“It was very intriguing to see how these things come together,” Rosas said. “You walk around campus and sometimes you ask yourself, ‘Why are these things far apart?’ And the architects kind of gave us background on how everything comes together.”
Brian Meyers with HMC asked guests to contribute to image boards placed in the back of the room. The boards had images representing San Benito County culture, agriculture and history.
“Your homework tonight is to place a dot on something that you feel has created inspiration within your community,” Meyers said. “We want to understand what drives this community.”
Comment cards were given to guests to fill out and return at the end of the evening. Tennenbaum encouraged questions and/or comments about the funding or facilities of the new school.
“The next step after design, we’ll be able to put together a financial package,” Tennenbaum said. “Parallel to what we’re doing right now is looking at our bond program: the potential bond with how we will fund this. As we get closer in May and April, we will tighten up our fiscal picture on how we’re going to fund the second high school, then we will have a dialogue about that.”
“This can be done in phases,” Hollister resident Ed Huston said of the new school’s construction. “It’s not all going to be laid out at once. As important as classrooms are, if you don’t have all those students initially—that’s going to grow over the years—you don’t build for 500 students when you only need classrooms for 200.”
We need your help. Support local, nonprofit news! BenitoLink is a nonprofit news website that reports on San Benito County. Our team is committed to this community and providing essential, accurate information to our fellow residents. It is expensive to produce local news and community support is what keeps the news flowing. Please consider supporting BenitoLink, San Benito County’s public service, nonprofit news.
You must be logged in to post a comment.