MOORPARK : High School Work Nears Completion

Work crews in Moorpark are scrambling to finish as much work as possible on seven new buildings at the local high school.

Moorpark High School first opened in 1988, but the campus has been completed gradually.

In addition to the new buildings, including a state-of-the-art performing arts center, an athletic stadium is also under construction. When these projects are complete, the school will be finished except for new athletic facilities that may be added over the years, officials said.

The buildings on the Moorpark High School campus are situated at various, odd angles to each other, and are centered around a grassy yard where the students eat lunch.

This design gives the campus “a collegial feeling,” said Gregory J. Barker, who is a trustee on the Moorpark school board and a history teacher at Thousand Oaks High School.

At most other high schools in Ventura County, the classroom buildings are in neat, orderly rows, he said.

Most of the new buildings on the Moorpark campus contain classrooms, which are all expected to be finished in the next few weeks.

One new classroom at the edge of the campus is designed for a preschool and includes a sandbox just outside the classroom door.

The preschool will be operated by the district’s adult-education program. But its location on campus will allow the school to start a teacher-training program for high school students, said Cary Dritz, the high school’s principal.

“This will be a vocational training program for our kids,” he said.

The crowning feature of the campus, however, will be the performing arts center. The building, which is expected to be completed by early 1993, will have an auditorium with seating for about 550, plus separate, adjoining rooms for teaching audio-visual production and scenery construction, Dritz said.