The Guam Department of Education leadership team, the Simon Sanchez High School administrative team, the SSHS planning committee, and partners from Taniguchi Ruth updated the public Tuesday on the progress of the design for the new Simon Sanchez High School facility at the community meeting held on Facebook.

Michael Makio of TRMA said the school design is 30% complete. He shared the goals and planning factors for the Simon Sanchez project.

"In addition to the feedback, the priority of the community feedback we have a set of specific criteria that we are planning to include campus safety and wellbeing, so we wanna make sure that we provide an environment of resilience and the enhancements needed to help the high school mitigate the challenges that occurred and currently the pandemic, and make sure that's safe for both manmade and natural disasters," he said. "Additionally we want to [provide a campus that allows the high school to actually, to have the existing high school operate while we're building the new campus."

The construction for the new school could begin by next summer. According to Makio, the first phase may be completed by the summer of 2024.
The locations and types of buildings have been decided, which means they now have to decide how the buildings would look.
As of last night, the learning institution will have a large central courtyard, cafeteria, gymnasium, library, cafeteria, and 94 classrooms.

While the COVID–19 pandemic has put the lives of many across the globe to a halt, it didn't stop the Home of the Sharks from putting what they wanted to see in a new facility in 25 pages of paper. SSHS Principal Carla D. Masnayon highlighted the hard work of the design team during the pandemic.

"They have been effortly participating in almost all of the meetings we've had with TRMA. And they have provided a lot of valuable information," she said. "So when it came down to talking about specialized classes our department chairs came in and shared their concepts about what an ideal classroom would be for their program."

The school will be purchased on a lease-to-own basis, GDOE Superintendent Jon Fernandez said. He adds that the department will issue a request for proposal for contractors interested in constructing the new school and financing it once the design is 90% complete.

In October of 2020, GDOE announced TRMA as the primary designer, administrative consultant, and owner representative for the Guam Department of Education. Since then, TRMA has taken the lead to gather information and work closely with the planning committee to develop a design for a new SSHS that meets the core needs, vision, and mission of the school and its stakeholders. TRMA is a locally–based firm with over 40 years of experience in architectural, planning, interior design, and construction project management services in the CNMI, Guam, and Micronesia.

User: Guam Department of Education To: link