PPEP charter high school nears completion in San Luis
SAN LUIS, Ariz. – As it marks its 55th year as an educational organization serving rural Arizona, PPEP Inc. is nearing the end of construction of a charter high school campus here.
The 15,000-square-foot PPEP TEC campus located on a nearly 14-acre site at Plaza Drive and Cesar Chavez Boulevard is expected to be done by late July, in time for the start of the new school year, said Jake Herrington, executive director of the Tucson-based nonprofit organization.
“We are on schedule in the first phase” of construction, he said. “We asked for a lot of (construction) materials in advance, so we are on schedule, even with the pandemic. We are continuing on our time line and things are progressing.”
He added that 95% of the subcontractors for the project are local, providing local jobs.
Original plans called for a 33,000-square-foot campus, but rising construction costs prompted the size to be reduced.
The campus will have eight classrooms and will serve up to 184 students. Twenty employees will work at the campus.
Also part of the school will be a cafeteria, gym, a common area for student gatherings and administrative offices. A parking area for staff and visitors will be covered with shade structures topped by shade structures.
The campus will be adorned by three-dimensional art and landscaping.
“We are marking 45 years in the San Luis area, so we are definitely planting roots here,” Herrington. “This is probably one of the most costly projects we have done in our history, under the leadership of Dr. Arnold,” Herrington said.
He was referring to John Arnold, founder and president of PPEP Inc., who more than a half-century ago began traveling to farm fields around Tucson in a bus he called La Tortuga to teach English classes to migrant farm workers. PPEP – or Portable Practical Educational Preparation – has grown in the decades since, and today offers a range of educational, vocational training, business development and housing programs in rural areas throughout Arizona.
It also has opened a number of PPEP TEC charter high schools in rural communities, including one in Somerton and one in a smaller location in San Luis that will be superseded by the campus now under construction.
In all, PPEP has served San Luis and Yuma County the past 45 years.
The celebration of the organization’s 55th anniversary served as the occasion for a recent visit by Arnold to San Luis, along with a tour of the soon-to-be-finished campus.
The campus is being financed with a bank loan, PPEP’S own funds and money from the Elementary and Secondary Emergency Relief Fund, a federal program set up to help schools deal with the COVID-19 pandemic.
In future phases at the same site of the San Luis school, PPEP has plans to build a 40,000-square-foot building for office space for local businesses and, still later, an apartment complex.