Green light for new projects
District board approves $368M in bond-funded campus upgrades
A $368 million series of construction projects to modernize and upgrade district buildings and facilities is set to launch at San Rafael City Schools.
Members of the San Rafael Board of Education voted 4-0 Monday, with trustee Lucia Martel-Dow absent, in favor of dozens of projects for the district's two comprehensive high schools, middle school, K-8 school and five elementary schools.
All are being funded by bond Measures B and C, approved by district voters in June. Measure B, for the high schools, will generate $216 million. Measure C, for the lower schools, will raise $152 million.
Highlights include new $23 million aquatic centers for both Terra Linda and San Rafael high schools and a $45 million multipurpose building called the Center for Student Life at Davidson Middle School.
All school campuses also will receive solar panel installations, security and safety upgrades and improvements for ventilation issues that came to light during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“I'm really pleased with what I'm seeing,” trustee Marina Palma told Dan Zaich, senior director of capital facilities, before the vote.
Trustee Gina Daly agreed. “I like that you're leveling the playing field,” Daly said. She was referring to the new plan delivering a roughly equal amount of improvements to all schools over the course of the current bond cycle. The previous cycle started in 2015 and was completed
“Our campuses are really looking brilliant.”
— Linda Jackson, San Rafael City Schools trustee
last week.
“This is a big win for our San Rafael students,” Zaich said Tuesday. “Our community really came together for our local schools with bond Measures B and C to improve our campuses
and ensure student success.”
Zaich said the overall theme of the projects is to create “future-ready classrooms” with a “focus on high-performance learning environments.”
Last week, the district held a ribbon-cutting ceremony for a $18 million, 18,566-square-foot STEAM — or science, technology, engineering, arts and math — building at San Rafael High School. That was one of several key projects finished in the last bond cycle.
The ceremony included a tour of modernized classrooms and a new “wellness” center.
“Our campuses are really looking brilliant,” said Linda Jackson, the district board president.
At Terra Linda High School, principal Katy Dunlap said the community is “very excited” that the new swimming pool and aquatics center will replace the pool built in the early 1960s.
“Our water polo program is thriving and we have long outgrown our existing pool,” Dunlap said.
“This aquatics center has been a dream of ours for the past several years,” she added. “I have received tremendous interest throughout the swimming community in planning the center.”
Zaich said the aquatics centers at both Terra Linda and San Rafael high schools will have competition-style lanes for swim teams, as well as deeper areas for water polo.
“The old pools have outlived their lifespans,” Zaich said. “We'll be replacing the old pools and setting districtwide standards for swimming pools as required by our users.”
Dunlap said the aquatics center “will be a crown jewel on campus and we couldn't be happier.”
Elsewhere in the district, the new 12,326-square-foot multipurpose center at Davidson Middle School is a critical need because the school has no other place for large gatherings, activities, performances or assemblies except the gym, Zaich said. The building will also include a food warming kitchen to serve meals.
“Davidson Middle School is really the focus of the elementary district bonds,” Zaich said. “We will devote $45 million out of the $152 million just for improvements at Davidson.”
The bond projects also will include new transitional kindergarten classrooms at elementary schools. Transitional kindergarten is a state-required program for 4-yearolds who have not reached the age 5 cutoff to enter kindergarten.
For the current school year, San Rafael has one transitional kindergarten classroom at each elementary school and two such classes at Venetia Valley K-8 school. One of the two transitional kindergarten classes at Venetia Valley is part of the district's new dual immersion language program.
As to the solar panels, those will be installed throughout the campuses on rooftops, on shade structures and on some groundmounted structures, Zaich said.
He and his team estimate that the district will realize a net savings of $5.5 million in electricity costs over 25 years through the solar panel arrays.
“That savings will go back to the district's general fund and so can be used to help students in classrooms, which is huge,” Zaich said.