Ernest Righetti High School began construction on its $22 million, 38-room classroom complex on Monday, Feb. 6.
The new complex, funded by a school bond from 2004, is under construction on the west side of campus. The classrooms will replace a parking lot and maintenance and operations buildings, which have been relocated.
District spokesman Kenny Klein told the Sun the project should be finished in two years.
“Everybody’s really excited,” he said.
The campus expansion aims to increase permanent classroom capacity, get rid of portable classrooms, and implement new technology. The new classrooms will feature moveable whiteboard walls, mounted big screen monitors that can display from the teacher’s tablet, and wheeled desks and chairs that separate into different arrangements.
The complex will also include four classrooms that can be combined into a large area.
Santa Maria Joint Union High School District Superintendent Mark Richardson said in a press release that most school classrooms fail to adequately prepare students for environments outside of or after high school.
“We must educate our students in a setting that will emulate the experiences they will have in life,” Richardson said in the release.
This article appears in Feb 9-16, 2017.