By Staff writer, Sosseh Taimoorian

You walk from third to fourth period and suddenly remember just before the bell rings that your first floor classroom has been moved to the bungalows.

You ask yourself, “What could possibly be going on?”

The answer: modernization, due to take place as early as this March.

The Measure K Bond, passed in 1997, allocated $186 million to the GUSD to be used for the modernization of schools in the District.
Principal Kevin Welsh said that the main changes taking place are in reference to the front of the school and the quad.
The front of the school will extend out approximately 15 feet. This means the counseling office and student services center will be demolished, sending counselors and students alike into bungalows on an alternating schedule. Parking will also be added to the front of the school.
Senior administrative secretary Celia Monterrubio states that “nobody looks forward to [staying in bungalows],” but justifies this inconvenience by saying that “it will eventually be rewarding.”
Other plans include building a terrace area in the quad to cause an uprising effect, where a central performance-like floor will be preceded, a few feet higher, by another level, followed by a third and final level with an assortment of trees planted in various sections.
Angela Sanchez (’09) said she would not mind having to travel to bungalows for instruction. “Sometimes sacrifices must be made for the greater good,” she said.
Smaller renovations of campus will include locker rooms, touchups to AC’s, new restrooms, and a couple of elevators added here and there.
The overall cost of modernization is said to be a little over $21 million with Leidenfrost/Horowitz and Associates (LHA) as the architects. Construction groups will be selected when bidding on modernization is put out into the renovation market.
Welsh states that modernization will take approximately a year and a half to two years, finishing in 2009. While noise and on campus will be chaotic, he suggests that “we’ll all get through it.”