Tracy Press

More than 700 Tracy High School English students will change classrooms a month after school starts this fall, because construction will delay the opening of 21 second-story rooms in a new building on campus.

The 40-room building — with 36 classrooms and four administrative offices — that will replace the old West Building was scheduled to be complete in August. But planning and construction delays have shifted the completion date a month later, though some rooms will be in use by the beginning of the 2008-09 school year, Tracy Unified School District planners said.

The new classroom building at Tracy High is under construction, and its full opening will be delayed. Glenn Moore/Tracy Press

A dozen first-floor classrooms will be ready for math classes at the start of the school year on Aug. 13. One first-story classroom will stay closed and act as a buffer between contractors and students until upper-story construction ends.

"We don’t want contractors and students mixing," Tracy High Assistant Principal Joni McGinnis said. "It’s a safety thing."

The month-long delay will not push back the date when the district plans to demolish a few 50- to 60-year-old buildings at the heart of the campus, McGinnis added. The buildings are set for demolition at the end of next school year, during the first month of summer 2009.

"Construction delays do nothing to change the date of when we tear down those buildings," she said.

While administrators hoped the two-story building would be ready for the semester’s start, McGinnis said she and the students will take it in stride and phase out of portable classrooms in a matter of weeks, instead of all at once.

"We don’t want to be worried and putting a rush on students or teachers," she said. "So we have an action plan in place to deal with this."

The parking lots and the exterior of the new building should be done in time for the first day of school, said Denise Wakefield, district director of facilities.

"But it’s kind of premature to say for sure what will or will not be done," she added. "We have particular goals that we want to meet, and the major goal is to get the math rooms done in time. And they will be."

The building, which the district has yet to name, is unofficially called Building A, or "the new West Building." The district has in the past called it the "40-classroom building," but some of that space will now be used for offices, cutting the number of classrooms to 36.

The building’s official name is another detail McGinnis said she hopes the district will clear up before students set foot on campus for the new school year.

By mid-September, the building should be filled with English and math classes. But once construction ends at John C. Kimball High School in the city’s west end in fall 2009, Tracy High will have fewer students and fewer English classes, McGinnis said. With the extra space, the 93-year-old school will move its social studies department into the new building’s second-story, too, making the building home to three departments and a few offices.

For the past several years, many English, social studies and math classes have been taught out of dated buildings in dire need of repair, along with a few portables, McGinnis said. After the portable classrooms are emptied, the school may use them for storage, she said.

Money for the $29 million replacement building came from the $51 million Measure E bond of 2006. The construction contract was awarded to Sacramento-based Roebbelen Contracting Inc.

Built on the site of the 90-year-old West Building that was demolished two years ago, the 40-room replacement will have a similar façade to the original. That was designed by architect W.H. Weeks in the mission-revival style — a style for which Weeks would later become famous.

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