Agua Fria campuses transformations bring new classrooms and theaters

By Stacy Mantle
Mail

Agua Fria Union High School District opened the school year with eight new classrooms at Millennium High School, a renovated Agua Fria High School auditorium and the new Hilltop School for the Arts, while construction continues across several campuses.

District officials updated the governing board on the projects during its Aug. 12 meeting.

Millenium High School

At Millennium High School, crews demolished approximately half of a two-story building after the previous school year ended. Demolition and infrastructure work continued through early July, followed by an accelerated reconstruction effort that lasted until the day before freshmen arrived.

The completed work includes eight classrooms beneath the auxiliary gym and two locker rooms.

“There was almost a superhuman effort that took place between our contractor, construction building team and our architect, DLR Group,” Deputy Superintendent of Operations Tom Huffman said.

The Millennium campus will remain an active construction site during the school year. Concrete barriers and fencing separate students from a large excavation area in the center of campus.

Contractors have established designated delivery times, parking areas and travel routes to limit contact between construction workers and students.

The next phase will include construction of new buildings expected to be ready by summer 2027. Once those buildings open, the district plans to demolish the remaining portion of Millennium’s central campus and continue the larger renovation.

Agua Fria High School

At Agua Fria High School, the district has renovated the auditorium, surrounding breezeway and landscaping along Dysart Road.

Improvements include new seats, curtains, theater rigging, electronic equipment and accessibility upgrades. Sound-absorbing materials were installed on the walls to improve acoustics.

Crews initially planned to remove the auditorium’s original wooden rear walls, but instead restored them and incorporated them into the renovated design.

“Those sound walls in the back, that original wood, is literally one of the highlights of the space now,” Huffman said.

The district expects to hold a ribbon-cutting ceremony at the auditorium later in the fall.

Hilltop School for the Arts

Hilltop School for the Arts opened Aug. 4, although crews are still completing smaller construction items. The school shares its site with the Georgia T. Lord Library and the Paul Litchfield Heritage Center.

A large dirt pile that drew attention during construction has been removed. The cleared area will eventually become parking for the library and district facilities.

Permanent streetlights have not yet arrived, so temporary lights are being used around the campus.

Work is also continuing on The Hilltop theater, which is scheduled for an Oct. 1 ribbon-cutting ceremony. District officials said events have been planned for 22 of the 31 days in October.

Exterior work, restroom tile and the theater’s heating and cooling system were being completed at the time of the meeting. Clearwing, the project’s theater-equipment contractor, is installing lighting, soundboards, electronics and other performance equipment.

Internet redundancy

The district is completing an internet-redundancy project intended to prevent extended internet and Wi-Fi disruptions.

Most campuses are connected to a backup system that can be activated within about 30 seconds of an outage. Agua Fria High School, Hilltop and Goodyear High School were expected to be connected within several weeks.

Superintendent Mark Yslas credited voter-approved bonds with funding classroom additions, renovations and safety improvements throughout the district.

“The critical-needs projects that happened over the summer were a result of our community passing our bonds the last couple of years,” Yslas said.

Editor’s note:   A grant from the Arizona Local News Foundation made this story possible. The foundation awarded 15 newsrooms to pay for solutions-focused education reporters for two years. Please submit comments at yourvalley.net/letters or email them to AzOpinions@iniusa.org. We are committed to publishing a wide variety of reader opinions, as long as they meet our Civility Guidelines.

Stacy Mantle
Education Solutions Reporter

smantle@iniusa.org

Meet Stacy
Stacy Mantle is joining the team at Independent Newsmedia, Inc. as an Education Solutions journalist, thanks to a grant from the Arizona Community Collaborative. She has a long history in education that ranges from teaching junior high and middle school to developing curriculum and standards-based assessments.

Community: A longtime advocate for animal welfare, Stacy is deeply involved in rescue efforts and volunteers with several nonprofit organizations.

Random Fact: Once upon a time, she shared her home with a pet coyote and two wolf hybrids. The experiences were wild enough to become the subject of her first book!

Education: She holds a BA in English with a minor in Political Science, a Post-baccalaureate in Secondary Education, and an MBA with a emphasis on Marketing.

Hobbies: In her spare time, Stacy writes fast-paced urban fantasy novels, crafts small-batch artisan soap, and is always up for hiking or off-roading through the Arizona wilderness with her husband of 23 years.