Half way there

The project began December 2002 and Maloblocki is optimistic the buildings will be ready for students by January 2005 as planned.

Students and teachers have been holding classes in portables since the school's original buildings were deemed unsafe in May 2001. Aside from not having a school building, the construction has not made much of an impact on campus life.

"The construction has not been annoying at all. [The construction crew has] been really quiet," said San Mateo High School freshman Andrea Sanders.

In fact, seniors Evelene Rodri and Mary Beth Godoy said the only real drawback to the reconstruction is that it won't be completed in time for this year's graduating class.

While the rain may have delayed the project about a month, much of the delay was caused by a group of devoted preservationists who launched an aggressive grassroots campaign and three lawsuits.

The reconstruction controversy began May 18, 2001 when engineers bored holes into the brick facades of the school's original buildings to test for structural stability. The tests were being taken in anticipation of Measure D, a $137.5 million bond measure passed in November 2000 to retrofit and renovate schools in the San Mateo Union High School District. According to the building's 1934 blueprints, there was to be light concrete reinforcements supporting the brick facade. Yet engineers did not find the reinforcements in either the main building and the arts and science wing of the school. Without them, the brick facade was deemed to be in "imminent danger" of collapsing if a severe earthquake struck. Superintendent Tom Mohr immediately condemned the building and students and teachers were relocated to buildings still deemed safe - such as the gymnasium - and then to portable classrooms.

The school district was faced with two main options of dealing with the unsafe buildings. The first was to retrofit the original buildings by inserting eight-inch concrete reinforcements into the external walls. The upside of the plan was that the 74-year-old building's historical integrity would be retained at a price tag of only $35 million. The disadvantage was that the buildings would still not have been fully compliant with state seismic building codes and could still sustain significant damage in an earthquake.

The second plan was to tear down the two buildings and reconstruct them with a design that closely mimicked the old. Such a plan entailed keeping the look of the old building while creating slightly larger and modern classrooms up to state and district standards. The downside to the plan was that it was more expensive than retrofitting the historical building which would have to be torn down.

The San Mateo Union High School Board voted unanimously in June 2001 to go with the latter plan. The decision set the stage for a battle throughout the San Mateo High School community between preservationists and those who supported the school board's decision.

For the next year and a half, heated debates on the issue and nearly hundreds of impassioned letters from both sides constantly found themselves on the opinion pages of local papers. The fight even went into cyberspace when both groups started their own Web sites.

Proponents of reconstruction were most concerned about student safety, the enlargement of classrooms and the modernization of facilities. Some even expressed disgust with the preservationists' disregard of these positive aspects of reconstruction.

"As the parent of a San Mateo High School student, I am outraged at the efforts of the 'Save San Mateo High School' preservationist group. They place priority in preserving an ugly old building over the rights of the students to receive their education in a modern state of the art facility," Landis Schmitt wrote in a letter to the Daily Journal.

Preservationists, many of them alumni, were incensed that a beautiful historic building which many of them felt a strong personal attachment for, was being torn down.

"I feel it would be grave mistake to simply demolish such a beautiful building and replace it with a modern structure. I understand that there are great expenses involved in retrofitting such an antiquated building, however, the cost of lost memories and pride would outweigh any price tag placed on the task ..." alumnus Chad Sparks wrote in a letter to the Daily Journal.

The debate was complicated by the courts. In April 2002, preservationists successfully won an injunction filed in September 2001, prohibiting the school from using money from a school renovation bond to reconstruct the school. A week later, the school board voted unanimously to reconfirm its decision to reconstruct the school. Preservationists responded by filing another court injunction claiming that the 6,000-page environmental impact report used by the school board to legitimize the school's reconstruction was inaccurate and that it violated the California Environmental Quality Act, which stated that a building that can be saved should be saved. Judge Carol Mittlesteadt ruled in favor of the preservationists in August 2002 yet the judge revisited the issue that November then ruled that the school could be torn down.

Demolition was finally completed in December 2002 - 19 months after the buildings were discovered to be unsafe. Reconstruction began soon after.

But the "Save San Mateo High School" drama didn't end there. Last February, the preservationists sued the district, which was already facing budget cuts up to $18 million, for $613,000 to pay their legal fees. The preservationists lost the lawsuit and the battle for San Mateo High School finally ended.

The San Mateo Union High School District has yet to schedule a ribbon-cutting ceremony though one is expected for around December 2004 or January 2005.

The ceremony isn't coming soon enough for Evelene and her fellow seniors. "[The school district] should have torn it down sooner so we seniors could have used the new building." said Evelene.

Other construction projects using Measure D funds are also currently being completed throughout the district at Aragon, Burlingame, Capuchino, Hillsdale and Mills high schools.