A lot has been going on at Oak Hills Elementary School. Construction, visibly underway, may have left those driving by on Kanan Road curious about the new changes coming to OHES.
California Governor Gavin Newsom signed a law across all public elementary schools in California that created a Transitional Kindergarten grade. This adds the potential for more three and four-year-olds to start their education early. While OHES already had a similar program in place, the law formally extended funding of 2.4 billion dollars across all California public schools. Children who turned four-years-old before September would make the cut-off to be in TK.
“We’ve done Discovery Kindergarten in the district for years, but the governor signed [Transitional Kindergarten] into law and created, officially, a new grade level for those four-year-olds before they come into kindergarten, which is great,” OHES Principal Heather Sloan said.To meet new demand for the official grade at OHES, three classrooms were specially designed for TK children. A construction team of over 20 workers is working on these new classrooms.
“We have two construction companies working side by side on this project,” Director of Facilities, Maintenance and Operations Maggie Bonilla wrote to the Talon. “They have multiple subcontractors which are also a part of their team. They are very proactive and meet every week to discuss any items which need to be addressed. They are very professional and have been a good team to work with.”
Building these classrooms took a lot of preparation, as the buildings are situated on top of what was a playground. .
“There was a lot of work to prep the site. They had to do a lot of digging to make sure the ground underneath was stable and ready to take on the foundations of the new buildings,” Sloan said. “They had to set drainage and the soil, the foundations were poured in December, and the buildings were just installed.”
Apart from the changes to the campus atmosphere, the paperwork to get the construction started was a long process.
“The construction process is very complicated. From beginning to end, the paperwork is very time-consuming, and the beginning of construction is a slow process due to all of the necessary paperwork. As the structural changes come to life, the excitement builds up, which makes the hard work pay off,” Bonilla wrote.
Similar to other classrooms in the district, these new classrooms are made from recycled shipping containers.
“What’s kind of fun is these buildings are similar to the I-buildings at the high school. The containers are former shipping containers that have been repurposed or recycled and upcycled into our classrooms,” Sloan said.
The former kKindergarten yard was removed to make room for these classrooms. The three classrooms will be put in a U- shape and have a seating wall with turf and trees in between.
To compensate for the loss of yard space, the district plans to maximize unused land by expanding the fencing perimeter closer to Kanan Rd.
“What the district did as a compromise is we had some open land at the front, near Kanan Road, that was open space. So they’re increasing our fence to open up and grab some of that land,” Sloan said. “The district has always owned the land and moved the perimeter fence to account for some of the playground lost to the building site.”
The pick-up and construction lanes at OHES have been closed since construction began. Despite increased traffic in the mornings and after school, parents have been supportive through the construction process.
“Right now, the biggest impact has been on our parking loop, because we’ve lost that extra lane where parents could pull in safely, so we’re limited to how much space parents can stop,” Sloan said. “It does back up traffic in the mornings at drop off, and in the afternoons, at pickup time.”
