In the 2002-03 school year, Bear Creek students may not have to make the arduous trek between Bear Creek and Julia Morgan for the first time in seven years. The school board voted on March 7 to use Christa McAuliffe Middle School as a magnet high school upon its completion. Christa McAuliffe, to be located on Iron Canyon Dr. in north Stockton, will hold 800 students and will cost $12 million. Bear Creek will vacate Julia Morgan when Christa McAuliffe opens as a magnet high school. "The board looked at three alternatives," Superintendent Del Alberti said. "The first was to go on, business as usual, and Bear Creek would use Julia Morgan till a bond was passed. The second was to return Julia Morgan in 2001 to the neighborhood and put $3 million worth of portables on Bear Creek's campus. The third was to give Bear Creek one more year at Julia Morgan while building Christa McAuliffe." The original agreement was that Bear Creek could use Julia Morgan for five years for overflow. Those five years are up in the 2001-02 school year. Alberti said the community around Julia Morgan is supportive of Bear Creek using Julia Morgan an extra year and then using Christa McAuliffe as a magnet high school. "The specific magnet has not been identified yet," Alberti said. "The good news is, we finally get a new building - Christa McAuliffe." Christa McAuliffe could house Bear Creek's academies or freshmen or could be an open enrollment high school. The magnet program will be decided in the next year. Assistant Superintendent of K-12 Schools and Educational Services Charlie Matus hopes that the program offered at Christa McAuliffe will be desirable to people so they will want to attend there. "If no one wants to go, people still have to be put there," Matus said. Matus said if no one wants to attend Christa McAuliffe, one option was transferring all freshmen there. Assistant Superintendent of Facility Planning Mamie Starr said the point of using Christa McAuliffe as a magnet high school is to create a stand-alone high school where students will stay all day. Matus said that all activities at Christa McAuliffe would be on one campus, so there would be no trek between campuses. "Students might go early or late to the main campus for band or other activities not offered there," Matus said. He believes that Christa McAuliffe will be a favorable alternative to Julia Morgan because a middle school can accommodate students better, facility and program wise, than an elementary school can. "It [Julia Morgan] has been a savior to Bear Creek, but it's not desirable," Matus said. "An elementary school is not designed for high school students. A good middle school can support many high school activities quite well." Starr said Christa McAuliffe's campus will consist of two main buildings. One will be a multipurpose building containing the cafeteria and smaller rooms. "The main building will have the library, offices, and classrooms, and that will be the two-story building," Starr said. "The technology at Christa McAuliffe will depend on what kind of magnet program is located there." Christa McAuliffe will also have science labs and art rooms as well. "It will operate like a small high school or large private school," Starr said. "There are high schools with 800-900 students; it's just not the norm for big districts." Matus said that currently there are about 660 students at Julia Morgan each period. If that number of students were moved to Christa McAuliffe, there would be room for about 100 more from other high schools, but because Bear Creek's population is growing exponentially, by the time Christa McAuliffe is built, there would probably only be room for Bear Creek students. "Reducing the number of students at Bear Creek is the primary objective," Starr said. The board still must decide what to do with Julia Morgan once Bear Creek vacates the site. Alberti said there are not enough students in the surrounding neighborhood to use Julia Morgan just as an elementary school. He said Julia Morgan might be used as a charter school. Starr said that attendance area boundaries could be moved. "Kids in the neighborhood wouldn't fill Julia Morgan, but if you put K-8 grades there, it would possibly fill it up," Assistant Superintendent of Secondary Education Instructional Services Lane Weiss said. If Proposition 26 passes, a simple majority will be necessary instead of a two-thirds majority in order to pass a school bond. Then a school bond will be placed on the ballot again. If approved, funds from the bond would be used to build a fourth high school, among other projects. "If the bond passes," Alberti said, "all these things will start happening." According to The Record, funding for Christa McAuliffe will come from district capital-outlay funds, state matching money, and a possible short-term loan. This proposal has been under serious discussion since November, but much of the serious planning has been done in January and February 2000. Starr said Christa McAuliffe should be finished in July 2002, but work must be started soon in order to make that deadline.