New high school has high hopes for the future
After a shaky start, Sobrato High School staff and students finished the school’s inaugural year with both a sense of relief and a sense of accomplishment.
“I think that we found opening the school a lot harder than we thought it would be,” Sobrato Principal Rich Knapp said Friday. “I also think that we all were very pleased with what took place here this year. We are starting to build a very respectful, trusting climate which supports students.”
The $78 million school opened last August with approximately 700 freshman and sophomores and 31 staff members.
Knapp hopes the community will come to know Sobrato as a school with a reputation for quality education, student success and leadership.
“One of the things I’m proud of is the way our students stepped up to the challenges of the year,” Knapp said. “With no juniors and seniors, some people were concerned there would be a void in leadership. Instead, we found students stepped right up and took leadership of their school. It was amazing, and I was very, very proud of them.”
Before school opened, a cheer squad was selected, an ASB (Associated Student Body) program was in place and even the school band was getting a start, with Director Eric Kalish making phone calls to recruit students who had been in the band but had not signed up to participate at Sobrato.
Student athletes were also ready when Sobrato’s doors opened: Football Coach Jeff Patterson was hired too late to conduct a spring training but had his players out practicing during the summer and had a team ready to take the field when the season started.
It wasn’t only the students who got a jump on the year and assumed leadership roles; Knapp said he attributes much of the year’s successes to the “team spirit” of the staff.
Teachers – all of whom volunteered to come to Sobrato – met during the spring last year, on their own time, to prepare for the year.
“One of the greatest things we had going for us is that everyone chose to go there, there wasn’t one involuntary move,” said Tracey Murphy, who teaches social studies and will head the department in the fall. “We met from early last spring, a couple of meetings at Britton (Middle School), at other locations, and everyone came gave their input. Rich was really open to our ideas and opinions, asking us, ‘What do you think about this,’ and ‘How should we do that?’ It was a great opportunity for us, to be able to build something new.”
Murphy said despite the “newness” of the staff, most of the teachers had years of experience before coming to Sobrato.
“We have quality people here, people who come from all different backgrounds, but not too many brand new teachers,” she said.
“Everyone was very excited about building this together, making some changes. It’s new to all of us, and we were creating it together.”
The opportunity to build policies and procedures from scratch was a plus for staff, but some of the other side effects of opening a new school were not quite so positive.
Since voters passed the bond in 1999 to pay for the construction of the school, the school has been a lightening rod for controversy.
Over the years, the community has expressed concern about the cost of Sobrato, especially in relation to the renovation of Live Oak High. While some renovation – mainly classroom buildings – has been completed at Live Oak, much remains to be finished.
The original construction management firm slated to build the school, Jacobs Facilities, Inc., was replaced by Turner Construction in January 2003 after public outcry about the inflated costs to build Barrett Elementary.
And when the school finally opened, it did so with the bare minimum of facilities – only an administration building and two classroom buildings. The library, locker rooms and the gym were not ready for students until more than half of the school year was over.
“I would have wished I could have looked into a crystal ball and had a clearer picture of when things would be done,” Knapp said. “I think that would have made a difference in how I tried to do things.”
Librarian Terri Knudsen, whom Knapp said also functioned as a “pseudo-administrator” this first year, said the details of settling into a new school were a challenge.
“The technology was new, the phone system was new, the attendance system was new, and we were all kind of scrambling to learn,” she said.
“At the beginning of this next year, however, we hope to have more of an opportunity to train everyone properly, including the students.”
Putting together the details of how the school would function was a lot more work than the staff originally realized Knudsen said.
“Things would come up, and we’d have to decide how we were going to deal with them,” she said. “This called for a lot of meetings, a lot of discussions to iron out how we wanted to handle things … There was a lot of coordination involved, and because we had a minimum staff … we had to all pitch in in roles that normally we would not assume. It was good, but it was challenging.”
The size of the student body during this first year was a definite plus, Knudsen said.
“I think we all enjoyed having a smaller population this year,” she said. “We were able to personalize instruction, especially incorporating our advisory classes. We had 20 students we would see once a week; it was a chance to get to know the kids, talk to them about school culture. The students were actively involved in creating the school culture, and therefore the school atmosphere feels very different from other high schools I have been in.”
Deputy Superintendent Bonnie Tognazzini said the capacity at Sobrato next year will be 1,500, and the projected enrollment, with the school adding a junior class is 1,023.
Next school year, Sobrato will have a full four-year student body.
Live Oak’s projected enrollment for next year is 1,594, she said.
Marilyn Dubil covers education and law enforcement for The Times. She can be reached by e-mail at md****@mo*************.com or phoning (408)779-4106 Ext. 202.
