New year new you, new year new school?
New roof on the senior lunch tables (Austin Garcia/The Puma Prensa)
Written By: Austin Garcia Villalpando, Staff Writer
Over the summer, Maria Carrillo High School had a huge transformation provided by the Santa Rosa City Schools facility management team. The administration's requests and school district decisions brought these new physical textures to the campus and added new features. These renovations were extremely eye-catching to the students and would prove to be useful for many aspects of the school both visually and physically. These additions ranged from the solar panels, to the large gym, to the repainting of the campus, and– with some funding from the parent association– the vegetation in the quads.
According to the Executive Director of the Santa Rosa City Schools facility organization Erik Oden, installing the solar panels in front of the student parking lot was a community partner project, “which means that it comes at no cost to the district, and the district does not own the solar [arrays].” Because the renovation is part of a power purchase agreement, this change does not affect our school like the other features besides bringing in revenue from the outside company simply renting out our parking lot space for their use of solar power.
Another improvement was the large gym floors in the lower quad. The process of the restoration took a week and started with stripping off the flooring until the only thing left was the wood. After this, the management team repainted the whole floor with a new design displaying the MCHS logo and then covered it with wax. MCHS Principal Amy Wiese stated, “That [this] has been in the [works] for years”, implying that a requested change could take a long time until it is brought into action. This result of the gym's transformation came out to be $57,128.00 for the duration of the time and the labor it took to remove the flooring and many refurbishments afterward. The small gym's design remains untouched because the large gym was part of a bond measure– a loan taken by the school district– for the school. After all, most major sports take place in the large gym, so it would also be more convenient for them.
The most notable difference about the school was the paint over the campus buildings which proved to be very compelling to returning students. Referring to the new paint on the campus, “it was just a lot darker” said junior Dominic Ricci, “and you could notice that they had [redone] some things.” This alteration of the paint job was the priciest change coming in at $436,715.00 for the sheer amount of space the paint would cover. This took the entire summer to do with the workers being at the school throughout the morning.
High school freshmen are very intrigued about the campus that they will be attending for the next 4 years and are curious about the physical features. “I think it's pretty nice,” said freshman Kaeden Tharp. “There's a lot [more like] vegetation compared to Rincon Valley Middle School”. Regarding vegetation, the turf is another addition to the campus that began in the last few weeks of the 2023-2024 school year with the help of the parent associations' funding. This began with the removal of the grass patches in the lower quad pathways. Then the slow addition of the turf last school year in the lower quad. There is however more room for turf to be placed as it has been stated by MCHS Principal Wiese that there is still a lot leftover from last year and is expected to expand to the upper quad. Some of these vegetation-related projects were done with volunteer work by students, such as the mulch and the garden. These are worked on at events like Mulch Madness, which encourages students to support the environment around the campus in exchange for extra credit or community service hours.
Despite these changes, it's important to acknowledge that this school is far from perfect. However, the hard work and dedication of the staff and students who contributed to these campus configurations have positively impacted the community. With the support of the Pumas, there is potential for even greater improvements in the upcoming school year.