At the beginning of the school year, Spring Grove students were
dropped off at a brand new parking lot and many of them got to
enter new classrooms.
Hollister – At the beginning of the school year, Spring Grove students were dropped off at a brand new parking lot and many of them got to enter new classrooms.
The small rural kindergarten through eighth-grade school in northern San Benito County underwent a large modernization project this summer. Finishing touches were being wrapped up this week in time for the dedication of the new facilities Thursday night.
The North County School District paid for construction through a $3.3 million bond measure, which was passed in June 2006. The bond paid for an indoor cafeteria, four new classrooms, the expansion of the upper-level classrooms, a library and an expanded parking lot. It will also pay for new athletic fields, to be installed next summer.
Jenny Bernosky, who teaches the eighth grade, was one of the teachers who got a new classroom. She said it was a huge improvement for the school – something even the students appreciated.
“They like the new rooms, and they’re bigger, which is great because we have big kids,” Bernosky said. “It’s just a huge, huge improvement. Our school was so dated.”
North County Superintendent and Spring Grove Principal Evelyn Muro said she was pleased the project had been completed.
“It’s wonderful. We’re very excited,” Muro said.
The project was on budget, Muro said, and relatively on time. The majority of the project, started as soon as school let out in early June, was done by the time students came back for their first day of school. All the classrooms are open and, except one, they are all in use. The library will officially open Monday, Muro said.
“They’re still finishing up details,” she said.
The project so far has cost about $2.71 million, said Shannon Hanson, director of fiscal services.
Hanson said the only problem they came across in the building process was the ground, which needed additional compacting because of its consistency, almost clay-like, she said. This caused some additional expenses to the district, Hanson said.
“Besides the soil, it’s been a pretty smooth project,” Hanson said. “We got it done and that was the main thing: getting it done so we could open on time.”
This is the second facilities update the school has had in the past few years. In 2005, a different $3 million construction replaced several classrooms that had been built in the 1970s. This bond measure construction will complete the school’s modernization.
The bond measure was passed by only a few votes. It was financed through a property tax on residents in the “north county” district, in northern San Benito and southern Santa Clara counties. The cost was $29 per $100,000 in assessed property value to those in the district.
