GILROY
If the school district accepts all the students who applied to transfer to Gilroy’s newest high school, it won’t be long before Christopher High is the biggest school in town.
Nearly 800 freshman and sophomores want to attend CHS, Gilroy Unified School District Superintendent Deborah Flores said. If the school board decides to accommodate everyone – which they might at this Thursday’s board meeting – the initial population at CHS would exceed that of Gilroy High School.
In addition to the 236 public school students zoned for GHS who requested a transfer, the district was pleasantly surprised when 60 students living within the school district attendance boundary but not currently attending public schools opted for CHS. Of those, 42 are zoned for CHS and 18 are zoned for GHS. Those students, plus the 500 eighth and ninth grade students currently residing within the CHS boundary will bring the total to 796 students – 200 more than district staff’s recommendation to open the school with 600 students.
“We’ve seen an incredible amount of interest in Christopher High School,” Flores said. “The number of applications we received is higher than we expected.”
On the flip side, 39 students living within the CHS boundary requested a transfer to GHS. Flores did not immdiately have demographic data available.
Thursday evening, district staff will present the board with three options:
-Maintain original capacity recommendation of 600 ninth and 10th grade students
-Accept all transfer applications
-Compromise somewhere in between
If the board chooses the first option, the district will hold a lottery for 58 vacant spots. If they go for the second option, they’ll have to cross their fingers and hope that phase two of the new high school, which is located at the corner of Santa Teresa Boulevard and Day Road in northwest Gilroy, will be completed by August 2010 – a likely timetable, Flores said. The board may also choose to opt for the last option and determine a new capacity, Flores said.
Flores said she supports the second option, allowing all students to attend the school they want.
The initial decision to cap the inaugural year’s enrollment at about 600 students was made before voters passed Measure P in November, Flores said. The approval of the $150 million facilities bond and the successful sale of the first $50 million installment could put the second phase of the school on the fast track to completion, Flores said.
The school will add juniors in 2010 and seniors in 2011 and, with the addition of another classroom wing in phase two of the school’s construction, will eventually house about 2,000 students.
