If all goes well by the time Manteca High’s new $6.5 million swimming pool is ready to use, all district high school swim facilities could be in tip-top shape as well.
That’s because the Manteca Unified School District board earlier this month directed staff to assess the needs at existing pools at East Union, Sierra, Lathrop, and Weston Ranch high schools to determine what is needed to bring them up to operational standards.
It is part of the effort via Measure A bonds to modernize and address health and safety concerns at the district’s three dozen campuses.
The new Manteca High swimming pool when it is completed will not only meet modern-day competition standards but it will also be the most prominently located.
It is being built along the promenade walkway that leads to the entrance of the new 2,161-seat gym also under construction. It also will be adjacent to what will become the “new front” for the school with a drop-off zone and revamped parking lot.
The $42 million plus worth of work now underway funded with a combination of Measure G bond receipts and growth fees will have been completed.
That work also includes eight new classrooms just east of the Winter Gym.
The addition of the eight classrooms will provide the campus with a program capacity of 2,120 students to position to accommodate growth south of the 120 Bypass that is expected to create when the first foundations for new homes in the 1,301-lot Griffin Park project along South Main Street are poured in later this year . An agreement with the city allows Griffin Park builders to construct 250 homes a year.
Manteca High’s enrollment is currently around 1,700 students.
Even with the $42 million, there is still $62 million in needs involving classrooms, support facilities, and grounds to bring them up to today’s standards and modern functionality as well as aging infrastructure issues on a campus that when all buildings and infrastructure are looked at together has a composite age of 52 years. That makes it the oldest school among the district’s 33 campuses in terms of the age of buildings and infrastructure.
Thanks to passage of the $260 million Measure A bond on Nov. 3, the district expects to have contracts awarded to address much of the remaining work before the new gym and swimming pool are completed.
Whether all of the work needed can be done with Measure A bond receipts depending upon how all of the remaining Manteca High work stacks up against $427 million in identified structural needs to address structural, facility, and ground issues that currently exist throughout the district’s 33 schools. The district plans to weigh everything to make funding goes to the most critical needs first.
That leaves $167 million of which more than $40 million of it could be addressed if and when the state reimburses Manteca Unified for work that qualified of state bond funding for work done at the Lincoln, Golden West, Sequoia, Lathrop, and Shasta elementary school campuses.
To contact Dennis Wyatt, email dwyatt@mantecabulletin.com
