LCHS facelift projects done

La Cañada Unified School District commemorated the “rebirth” of its high school on Monday morning with a ribbon-cutting ceremony.

Most of the district’s school board members, La Cañada High School administrators and state Assemblyman Anthony Portantino gathered around school board President Jeanne Broberg as she cut the ribbon in front of the school’s newly renovated bathroom and auditorium.

“This school district does great things and I wanted to support it,” said Portantino, a La Cañada residents whose oldest daughter graduated from LCHS two years ago and younger daughter attends third grade at La Cañada Elementary School. “Obviously when you have better facilities it’s a better experience for the kids and it’s all about the kids.”

The construction project cost a total of $1.917 million and included the modernization of Room 100 and the renovation of two campus restrooms. The auditorium was also refurbished as carpet was taken out for polished cement to improve the room’s acoustics. A ramp and mechanical wheelchair lift were also installed for access to the auditorium and its stage.

For the more than a year there has been some sort of construction underway at La Cañada High as fences and portable construction trailers were scattered around campus.

“I think the school is very thankful that construction is basically over because they can get back to regular life and not have the drilling, the pounding and the mess,” said Mike Leininger, the district’s assistant superintendent of facilities and operations.

“It feels great that we were able to get a lot of the fencing and staging areas down so it actually looks like a high school again,” Supt. Jim Stratton said.

“When you just look at the front of the school now as opposed to last year it’s such an improvement,” Stratton said.