Bullard High's new classrooms opening soon

FRESNO, Calif. (KFSN) -- Crews are polishing the floors inside Bullard High School's newest classroom building. The facility itself is nearly complete, with furniture scheduled to move in over the next couple weeks.

"It's exciting to see the movement and our teachers are excited about moving into the building as well as our students," said Vincent Salazar, Vice Principal of Bullard High School.

The 15-classroom building features state-of-the-art technology and will be dedicated mostly to social sciences. Three of the classrooms, though, are larger and devoted solely to career technical education.

"Allows a lot more collaborative space, a little more open as far as getting more kids in there, getting tables in there for kids to get around and work," said Mitch Gaasch, Facilities Project Manager.

The building is opening on time despite a lot more rain than originally expected. Crews had to work around the wet weather by pumping out flooded areas and tacking on more work during the few dry days.

"They'll run some pumps as soon as it's dry enough if they have to do some extra excavation to get the wet dirt out and bring some dry dirt in; they've done that as well, so we can continue to get things ready to go for the opening in February," said Gaasch.

The new classroom building is part of a major construction project underway at Bullard High. Officials said the school is growing and the extra room is badly needed.

After this building is complete crews will be focused solely on opening Bullard's new administration building, plus an expanded library that includes a 100-seat lecture hall.

"It's actually going to go a long way towards replacing the bungalows which we call the 26 temporary buildings which are currently on the south end of campus have been there for quite a while," said Salazar.

The administration building and expanded library are expected to be complete by June, just in time for the 2017 to 2018 school year.