Responding to continued enrollment growth, the Chandler Unified School District is taking steps to build both a new high school and elementary school in the southeastern corner of that district.
Construction of the new schools is seen as essential in order to accommodate what is expected to be an increase of more than 3,000 new students in the district in the next ten years.
Members of the district’s Governing Board have now given their approval to the purchase of nearly 74 acres near the intersection of Brooks Farm Road and Gilbert Road for the high school’s construction.
The new elementary school is slated to go up sometime in the next two or three years on land near 148th Street and Ocotillo Road.
That school, while also absorbing new students coming into the district, will additionally house students from the existing Weinberg Elementary School, which was built in the mid-1980s.
The older structure will then be transformed into a facility for gifted students and re-branded as the Weinberg Gifted Academy.
District officials have said that they would like to see work begin on the new high school by no later than early next year, with a general target completion date of summer 2021.
Serving most of the city of Chandler, as well as portions of nearby Gilbert and Queen Creek, the Chandler Unified School District currently has an enrollment of more than 45,000 students, up from 39,000 in 2014.
Those enrollment numbers reflect Chandler’s population boom, one that has seen a near tripling of people in the last two decades to more than 257,000 today.
By Garry Boulard
