Vision for Mission Hills K-8 school campus discussed at series of task force meetings

By Dave Schwab | SDUN Reporter

Choosing between two proposed master-plan design concepts for a new school, teachers and parents at Grant Elementary in Mission Hills tentatively selected a combination of both. A meeting outlining the projects was held May 23 at the school, located at 1425 Washington Place.

Following passage of Propositions S and Z, the San Diego Unified School District hired Roesling Nakamura Terada Architects to work with faculty, parents, students and the community to develop a state-of-the-art master plan for a complete redesign of the K-8 school’s campus, meeting organizers said. Amenities in the school’s redesign may include new classrooms and administrative offices as well as a joint-use recreational field and an indoor gymnasium. The school is situated next to Pioneer Park.

Following a slide presentation at the May 23 meeting by Rick Espana, senior associate at Roesling Nakamura Terada, the Site Master Plan Task Force said they preferred to combine the North-South orientation of the joint-use recreational field from one design concept with the L-shaped building configuration of the other.

Likening the school’s redesign to a “Rubik’s cube,” in which design elements can be rearranged, Espana and his team walked the task force through both prospective school design alternatives at the group’s second meeting. He said the two alternative design concepts presented were the synthesis of input received from both students and task force members.

“We’re presenting a couple of conceptual site plans based on what students and task force members told us so we can come back with a preferred site plan,” Espana said. “Hopefully by June 20 we’ll have this all wrapped up.” Another task force meeting is scheduled for June 20, where a working master plan will be presented.

The next step in planning the school’s redesign will be to allot the square footage for various functions on the school’s smaller campus site, Espana said, and the process would move into a second phase, which will include a Design Task Force to continue the process of gathering community, student and faculty input.

“We really don’t have plans or architectural elevations; that’s coming at a later meeting,” he said. “Now we’re interested in looking at volumes of space and how it works on the site.”

Members of Grant Elementary’s Site Master Plan Task Force were not squeamish about registering their views on how their campus should be reconfigured. Their feedback is part of a continual vision process, creating a wish list for the finished school that takes in the changing needs of the neighborhood, the students and faculty, and the school district.

“Having the library over the gym is not a good idea. There needs to be a quiet building,” said one member, who added putting a music room above the gym where noise from both could cancel each other out might be a better alternative.

Another member said they thought regrouping the buildings into an L shape was an effective use of space. Nearly everyone seemed to like the concept of having a central courtyard in the school’s remodel.

Yet another member suggested that more attention – and space – be devoted to a new school garden in redesign plans. The architectural team agreed, saying that students, when asked what was important to them in redesigning their school, said adding more trees and providing more shade campus-wide were important considerations.

It was pointed out at the May 23 meeting that the school would remain open while construction was being done to reconfigure the campus. It was also noted that funding is still needed for the long-term campus redesign project, however construction is not expected to begin before 2015 and could start as late as 2020.

Nearly a century old, Grant Elementary is a historic institution in the Mission Hills neighborhood. Beginning as an elementary school at the start of World War I and expanding to include a middle school in 2008, Grant is one of San Diego Unified’s top performing K-8 schools.

It is now home to approximately 625 students, ages 5 through 13 and encompasses nine grade levels. The school offers programs that include accelerated math and services for advanced students, as well as instruction in art, music, drama, digital media design and Spanish language.

The May 23 meeting was the second in a series for the current task force about the redesign. The third meeting was held Thursday, June 6 after this story went to press. The final meeting for the task force is June 20.

For more information and to participate on a future task force, email [email protected].