Laguna Beach school board approves construction contracts for pool project

The Laguna Beach community will soon be able to enjoy a swim in a modernized pool, as final approvals, including contracts for construction, received unanimous approval from the Laguna Beach Unified School District board of education earlier this month.

The board’s action, taken at its Jan. 8 meeting, sets in motion plans to build a new 45-meter pool, consisting of 16 lanes.

Construction contracts awarded at the meeting total $18.8 million. Board members also approved $2.2 million in contracts for construction-phase services and oversight.

District officials said the pool modernization project could cost up to $25 million, depending on contingency costs. There has been $20.4 million in funding allocated toward the pool, including an $11-million general fund transfer in the current fiscal year and a $4-million transfer in fiscal year 2026-27. Additionally, $5.4 million has been contributed from the capital reserve fund.

Following a presentation, school board member Joan Malczewski posed the question of what the cost would be of not approving the project, weighing those consequences against a potential budget shortfall.

“If the board didn’t act, then the cost would inflate,” District Supt. Jason Glass told the board. “It will be more expensive if you wait a year, somewhere in the neighborhood of 8-to-10% more expensive, and that’s a big number when you’re talking about a $24-million project. … Also, the reasons that we are wanting to improve the pool now is that the pool and the complex we have, there a lot of deficiencies that are going to continue to get worse. Those problems also persist, and then there’s a soft cost around this. We are trying to do this to create, ultimately, a better facility for our students and for the community.”

Potential resources to fill the funding gap presented by district officials included property tax revenue, the capital improvement project fund, and Proposition 2 match funding.

Board member Howard Hills called it an “inconvenient truth” that the district did not know exactly how it would close the funding gap, but he added that the project needed to move forward, returning to the reasoning that project costs would rise with time.

“An important thing for people to remember about Laguna Beach High School is that it is a neighborhood school that serves the whole community,” Hills said. “The neighborhood was not happy with the plan, and because of the fact that the right questions were being asked, there were changes made to the plan that involve mitigation of light and sound and use, and the impact of that on the neighborhood. The process was never delayed.”

The president of the school board, Sheri Morgan, said she looked forward to the project’s completion after characterizing points in the discourse around it as divisive in nature.

“I’m grateful that we have had the fiduciary responsibility to be able to secure the funds to build this pool,” Morgan said. “I’m confident that we can find the rest of the funds that we need, and I love the idea of opening the coffers in the community and seeing who else would like to contribute. Maybe we can give [donors] a plaque.

“I think that this pool, unfortunately, has been leveraged as a weapon against this community, to divide our community. I’ve seen it for a long time in how things were approached, and I hope that this brings people together, and we can stop some of the infighting and start celebrating, collectively, all that we’re doing that is so good.”

The existing Laguna Beach High School and Community Pool will be closed on June 6, a district spokesperson shared in a press release issued Tuesday. Construction is scheduled to begin on June 15, with the project’s completion expected to come in June 2027.

The project will include a pool deck, concrete bleachers, public restrooms, and a 6,692-square-foot, two-story locker room and shower area with storage space for equipment.

Construction staging will use parking spaces along Park Avenue to keep both lanes of traffic open during the project. Construction coordination will also take into account school traffic patterns, and pedestrian access around campus will be maintained during all phases of work.

During the project timeline, the district will partner with nearby school districts to share athletic facilities for its aquatics programs.

Throughout the process, students and parents from the aquatics community had weighed in with their desire to see a new pool built. Public testimony often cited concerns about lane availability, inability for the high school’s water polo team to host CIF Southern Section playoff games, and a facility that was deemed to be reaching the end of its useful life.

Laura Jumani, a water polo parent, mentioned the pool heating system had not been functioning properly in late November, adding that the scoreboard malfunctioned during the Laguna Beach High girls’ water polo team’s first league home game, forcing the score to be kept on a whiteboard with black marker.

Jumani also read into the record a letter from the high school’s girls’ water polo coach Katie Teets, who was away with the team for their participation in the Santa Barbara Tournament of Champions.

“The majority, if not all, of the things at the pool are at the end of their lifespan, and we need help,” Jumani read from Teets’ statement. “There is a sense of fatigue. … We just need to make it until a new pool breaks ground. There’s only so much we can continue to duct tape, bubble wrap, however you want to put it, and produce a service that we can be truly proud of.

“Since I have been at this high school — two and a half years — people from in and out of the community have asked me when the new pool is going to break ground. So many professionals have spent hours making plans that will provide the Laguna aquatics community with the help they and we need, while keeping the entire community, at large, in mind.”