North Hills : Ground Broken for High-Tech Facility

Moving one step closer to a years-old dream to connect the campus to the information superhighway, administrators at Los Angeles Baptist High School in North Hills broke ground Monday for a state-of-the-art multimedia library.

“We’ve been wishing and planning for this for about 10 years,” said Linda Scherr, coordinator of development for the 24-year-old private school.

Funded largely by donations, the two-story facility will include 93 computers and printers in six new classrooms and an upstairs library.

“It’ll just be wonderful,” Scherr said.

The goal, said Principal Gary Smidderks, is to provide a window to the world via the Internet and to better prepare students for the information age.

“It’s geared for high-tech online access,” he said, describing ways in which students will be able to locate research materials all over the world.

The additional classrooms will also allow Los Angeles Baptist to handle an expected enrollment increase of 150 students in the next year, Smidderks said. Currently, the school has 775 students in grades 7 through 12.

Construction of the $1.3-million building will begin in the next two weeks and should be finished by fall. The school’s existing library will be converted into offices and conference rooms, Scherr said.

Although she will have graduated by the time the new library opens, 17-year-old senior Mandie Pinto said the facility will be a welcome resource at a school that depends on donations to survive.

“Public schools get so many opportunities,” she said. “Right now I think there’s only two computers in [the current library]. It’s very frustrating.”