Alemany High School Celebrates New Site

Three years after being jolted out of its original location by the Northridge earthquake, Bishop Alemany High School on Tuesday celebrated the completion of the first phase of its reconstruction efforts at its new campus--the former Our Lady Queen of Angels High School Seminary.

Renovations at the seminary, which was closed by the Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles in October 1994, included the construction of computer labs and a temporary gymnasium as well as the installation of air conditioning in classrooms and the addition of 1,500 lockers. In an effort to improve traffic on San Fernando Road, a second entrance was built, making the school accessible from Rinaldi Street.

The next phase of construction at the school, which has 1,400 students, is scheduled to begin immediately and involve transforming a large seminary dormitory into a school building with eight state-of-the-art science labs, additional classrooms and a permanent gymnasium, Alemany Principal Father Robert Milbauer said.

Nine of 12 classroom buildings and much of the rest of the school’s original campus was destroyed in the 1994 earthquake, forcing the Catholic school to relocate to the nearby seminary. In 1995, the archdiocese announced that Alemany would be allowed to permanently occupy the park-like grounds of the former seminary, which is adjacent to San Fernando Mission.

“We are very happy to be here. It’s worked out very well for us,” Milbauer said Tuesday. “Completing this work gives us a sense that we are moving on.”

Senior Shauntay Mashagh, 18, who was a freshman when the earthquake struck, said changing locations midyear was difficult, but that she preferred the new campus to the old.

“After the earthquake we were out of school for about two weeks and then we had rotating classes for the rest of the year, with some students here in the morning and others in the afternoon,” she said. “It was hard getting used to at first, but now everyone loves this campus.”