by Carlos Rico | The Daily Transcript | www.sddt.com

Grossmont Union High School District is halfway toward completing more than $274 million in school projects, as it has reached another milestone.

Phase 3A is now under construction at the school district and calls for eight new science classroom buildings at El Cajon Valley, El Capitan, Granite Hills, Grossmont, Helix, Monte Vista, Valhalla and Santana High
School.

This phase, which totals $72.4 million, is expected to take approximately 12 months. All eight of the science classroom buildings have either commenced construction or are in the pre-construction phase.

Upon the completion of Phase 3A, the district will have 72 new science classrooms and laboratories available for instruction.

Each new science building encompasses a comparable conceptual design, which entails a two-story facility that total 14,033 to 17,033 square feet, and comprises eight to 10 classrooms with various chemistry, biology and physics labs.

The projects do not qualify for LEED certified standards, but are designed to follow San Diego Gas & Electric's Savings by Design program that offers services and incentives for energy efficient amenities on nonresidential buildings.

Those in charge of these projects include Jaynes Corp., Soltek Pacific Construction, The Augustine Co., Fordyce Construction, C.W. Driver and Legacy Building Services. Those architectural firms which designed the eight-science building nclude Harley Ellis Devereaux, Platt Whitelaw and HMC Architecture.

Now, also going on in the district is Phase 2B of the Proposition H school bond projects. This phase calls for 276 new classrooms to be built of which 220 are now complete, according to Katy Wright, program
manager for Proposition H projects.

So far these standard classroom modernization projects have been completed at seven of the district's 16 campuses.

The 56 classrooms that still need to be completed are at Mount Miguel High School. The bids opened in January and received board approval on Feb. 12. Construction is set to begin over the next 30 days.

In addition for phase 2B, Valhalla High School, Foothills Adult School, Steele Canyon High School, Viking Center, Chaparral High School, Homestead Frontier and the Work Training Center presently are in the pre-design or full design stage.

Phase 2B began in 2007 and is scheduled to be completed by the end of this year.

These projects are made possible through Proposition H - a $274 school bond measure that was passed in March 2004 by 62 percent of East County voters in an effort to repair and renovate aging schools in the
Grossmont Union High School District and the construction of a new high school.

It was the first bond passed by voters in the East County in 37 years, and called for student safety improvements, upgrades and expansion of technology and other infrastructures.

Construction for Proposition H projects started in 2005 and are broken down into four modernization phases.

Phase 1 and 2A called for underground utility infrastructure construction was completed in 2006.

Next up is Phase 3B-R that involves modernization and construction of remaining prioritized work that will start later this year and go till 2010.

The final phase will be the construction of a new school construction, which will be the district's 12th school; completion is set for 2013.

The district will also see more construction in the near future as voters passed another school bond measure in November 2008.

Proposition U is a $417 million school bond measure that will call for new technical education facilities and constructing new multi-purpose classroom buildings.

Bond sales for $60 million of these projects will start in April, according to Wright.