'Demolish MacGregor High' Recommendation on School Board Agenda

Update: The meeting place of this special school board meeting has been changed. It will be at Albany City Hall.

The Albany school board will hold a special meeting at 5:30 p.m. Tuesday to consider a staff recommendation to demolish MacGregor High School and replace it with portables, according to the meeting agenda.

The idea of tearing down MacGregor, the district's small continuation high school, has been under discussion for some time.

Albany Unified School District Superintendent Marla Stephenson included the recommendation in her update on the district's Facilities Master Plan at the Sept. 24 school board meeting.

The presentation said MacGregor is "structurally and mechanically deficient" and lacks a fire alarm system. "Replacing the fire alarm system will trigger ADA and current code upgrades," the presentation said. "The cost of upgrading a campus that does not meet current and future educational needs is not a good investment for the District."

A rough estimate of the demolition cost is $2.5 million, Stephenson told the board.

The recommendations presented by Stephenson included increasing the number of classrooms available for Albany High and Albany Middle School at the site by replacing the existing facilities "through the use of import shipping containers from Growthpoint," according to the board meeting minutes.

Leo Ray-Lynch of WLC Architects, a firm hired by the district to help with the Facilities Master Plan, told the board that the durable steel containers from Growthpoint have been widely used for housing for decades and by Los Angeles Unified School District for educational purposes.

By arranging the containers in a two-story configuration, the district could optimize use of space and possibly relocate the district headquarters to the site, Stephenson's update said. 

More details about the proposal should be available in the meeting packet, which the district said will be available on the district website 24 hours before the meeting. The meeting will be held at City Hall.

MacGregor is located at the southeast corner of Brighton and San Gabriel Avenues. It had 28 students in grades 10-12 last school year, according to Ed-Data, an information website about California schools co-sponsored by the state Department of Education.

Published Oct. 27, 2014, 4:23; updated Oct. 28, 11:45 a.m.