SVHS Master Plan still big and bold

Board to take a second look at ambitious ?proposal March 19|

Community members will get a second look at the proposed Master Facility Plan for Sonoma Valley High School at a special school board meeting from 6:30 to 8 p.m. Thursday, March 19, at the high school library.

But there won’t be any substantive changes in the plan.

Steve Kwok, the district’s architect, said there are a few changes, but nothing major.

“The buildings that we’re planning to demolish and the ones we’re planning to build haven’t changed,” he said. “It’s tweaking. It’s how to arrange things.”

Kwok said there will be landscaping added to the revised plans.

The one thing there won’t be yet is a price tag attached to the plans.

“We want to do the estimating when everything is agreed upon,” he said. “It’s just more efficient to do it (the estimating) at the end of the process.”

The plan was unveiled at a meeting in January and includes a performing arts center that includes a 400-seat auditorium; a quad – which could include an amphitheater – in the middle of the campus where building G now sits; a new student services building that would include a cafe of sorts; various new buildings for the ag program including a shop, a show arena and stands, classrooms along with a vineyard and a large garden and orchard; improved athletic facilities including new locker rooms and weight room, a 35-meter pool, four more tennis courts, four new baseball diamonds and a 3,500-seat football/soccer field with artificial turf surrounded by an eight-lane all-weather track.

Thursday’s meeting is a special school board meeting so all of the board can attend. Because the January meeting wasn’t agendized as a school board meeting, only two of the trustees were allowed to attend so the district wouldn’t run afoul of the state’s open meetings act.

School Superintendent Louann Carlomagno said the board would look at the plan again at its April meeting for more informal discussions.

Carlomagno said she doesn’t anticipate the plan going to the board for a vote before the June meeting.

A PDF map of the district’s Master Plan for Sonoma Valley High is on the district’s website, svusdca.org, along with the Master Plans for the rest of the district’s campuses.

At the January meeting, Kwok pointed out that changes would have to happen incrementally because, for example, in order to construct the quad or plaza, a classroom building would have to be demolished and space would be needed to house those classes.

Before the draft plan gets to the school board for its approval, in addition to costs, the committee would set priorities.

Kwok did say that local contractors – and especially local subcontractors – would be used on the project.

He promised that any demolition would be done in the summer so as not to disturb classes. And he said the projects would be done under one Environmental Impact Report because “you can’t piecemeal them.” He estimated that an EIR could be completed in about nine months.

“We want to give as many opportunities to as many students as possible,” he said.

And said that the infrastructure needs to be “as robust as possible,” because of the technology. “We see that each student will have three a laptop, a tablet and a phone,” he said, and that will require a lot of bandwidth.

Thursday’s meeting will follow an informational meeting with the Sonoma County Water Agency on it’s proposal to build a pipeline up Fifth Street East to Denmark Street to bring recycled water to the district’s fields behind the high school, Prestwood and Adele Harrison Middle School.

The Water Agency meeting is from 5:30 to 6:30 p.m. in the library followed by the Master Plan meeting from 6:30 to 8 p.m., also in the library.

Sonoma Valley High is located at 20000 Broadway.

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