In order to reconfigure Manteca High to allow the expansion eventually to 2,200 students 17 existing classrooms will be demolished.

The classrooms need to be removed to allow expansions to support facilities such as the cafeteria so that the 98-year-old campus will be able to accommodate a maximum of 2,214 students.

Work on the $40 million modernization as well as putting in place campus elements to handle 2,200 students will start next year. The present campus configuration has a design capacity of 1,703 students. There are currently more than 1,600 students at the campus.

Major elements of the plan adopted by the Manteca Unified School District board that may be pursued in the first phase targeted to start next summer depending upon how far the $40 million set aside for initial work goes are:

*Permanently closing Garfield Avenue between Mikesell Street and the northern most entrance to the current student parking lot. The section that is being closed eventually will be converted into a plaza to allow access, if needed, for city crews to work on sewer, water, and storm water lines that run below the length of Garfield Avenue.

*Re-orientating the front of the campus toward Moffat Boulevard. A new administration office complex will be built to make this happen. This would allow buses as well as student drop-off to take place from Moffat using Garfield Avenue and Sherman Avenue. It would help relieve congestion along Yosemite Avenue.

*Demolish the swimming pool and build a new gym capable of seating the entire eventual student body of 2,200 students. It will be immediately south of the existing big gym. The swimming pool will not be replaced in the first phase. That would happen in a later phase.

*Build new locker rooms for both the boys and girls physical education and sports programs.

*The existing small gym would be demolished.

*The school district’s first two-story classroom will be built west of the new big gym (where the swimming pool is now located) and east of Sherman Avenue.

*The cafeteria will be expanded and a new student quad created. This will involve demolishing existing classrooms.

*A new science quad will be created.

*A new softball field will be created just outside the main entrance to the football field on an existing grassy area. The centerfield fence will bump against the centerfield fence of the baseball field.

Bethany Homes will

pay $701 more a year

if Ripon bond passes

Bethany Homes won’t experience sticker shock if Ripon Unified School District voters approve Measure I — the $38.5 million bond issue on the Nov. 6 ballot.

Kit Oase, who serves on the committee seeking passage of Measure I to modernize Ripona Elementary, Ripon Elementary, and Ripon High, said he sat down with Bethany Home representatives to go over their property tax bill.

Based on the assessed value of Bethany Home’s three properties and the fact two of them qualify for a charitable or welfare assessment reduction under state law, the $36 per $100 of assessed value Measure I tax would increase Bethany Home’s monthly tax bill by $58.58 or $701.73 per year.

The bond needs 55 percent approval to pass.

The impact the proposed Ripon Consolidated Fire District tax to staff the new fire station on River Road on Bethany Hone in the June 5 election helped generate opposition to a parcel tax that ultimately failed.

That tax would have taken Bethany Home’s tax bill for the fire district up $72,500 a year from $14,430 to $86,930.

To contact Dennis Wyatt, email dwyatt@mantecabulletin.com