RENOVATION: Poly High School is in the midst of reconstructing its air conditioning system and campus construction is in full swing.
By Emily Bronwyn Hughes, Editor
Over the next two years, Poly High School will be undergoing a 12 million dollar renovation project designed to improve and modernize air conditioning across campus. This large-scale change will affect almost every building on campus, ensuring that each room and building is equipped with a modern air conditioning unit. The renovation project is already in motion, with construction workers currently breaking ground next to Poly’s library. More is projected to take place through the end of the school year, into summer, and continuing intermittently over the next two years.
The first stage in this large renovation project is installing the electrical wiring and “preparing the utilities for this project” according to Mr. Brian Frost, Poly’s Assistant Principal. He notes that construction workers are “putting in additional electricity for all the new [air conditioning] units. A lot of the things that are being done right now are in preparation for the construction that’s going to happen this summer.” All across campus, colorful spray paint marks are drawn to depict specific patterns and numbers. The marks indicate electrical wiring beneath the concrete, the brunt of which can be found in the area behind the Student Store and the library. “All of the spray painting that’s being put on the sidewalks is to identify the underground utilities,” Frost notes.
According to Frost, this project is going to affect students in two major ways, besides the addition of singular air conditioning units. One of those ways will be the closure of the teacher parking lot behind the 800’s building in order to put the air conditioning units in that area. More teachers will have to park in the student parking lot, which will mean that fewer parking permits will be issued. “We’re going to lose 42 parking spaces. Anyone who’s been in the parking lot lately knows that every single space is used. So I’ll only be able to issue out about 220 student passes, versus 260,” Frost explained. The school is looking to formalize its agreement with Temple Beth-El, the Jewish synagogue across the street, to ensure additional parking spaces are available for students. Students will also be affected by the impending closure of some classrooms, which will cause classes, specifically rooms in the 500s building, to move to portables.
Poly’s campus has had problems with air conditioning in the past, with systems breaking down, causing entire buildings to go without cool air. Therefore, this project is “all to replace a centralized unit. What would happen [before] is that centralized unit would break down, and we would lose air conditioning in 37 classrooms,” Frost expressed. This new system, aside from being completely modern, will ensure that an entire building never loses access to air conditioning again. Frost’s vision is that every classroom will have its own unit, with some units placed behind the classrooms, and some on the roof. In this system, even if an individual air conditioning unit breaks down, only that classroom is affected.
The project is expensive on the high school scale, but Riverside Unified School District has invested in the future of Poly High School. “The board of education felt that it was imperative that Poly High School had appropriate air conditioning in classrooms,” Frost said on the subject. He went on to acknowledge that “it’s going to take a while and it’s going to be inconvenient for a little bit,” but the end result of modern air conditioning is worth it.