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Maranatha Christian breaks ground for expansion

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Maranatha Christian Schools embarked on the first phase of its expansion with the groundbreaking for its high school on Wednesday morning.

School officials, students and others gathered to break ground for the 22,000-square-foot two-story building that will serve students in ninth to 12th grade. If all goes according to schedule, Maranatha Christian High School students will begin attending classes in their new building next fall, according to Soncee Partida, MCS’ development coordinator.

She said Phase 1 will cost around $9.7 million and school officials hope to have it completed within three years. Wednesday’s ceremony also marked the launch of a capital campaign to pay for the endeavor.

Partida said the 4S Ranch-based Maranatha Chapel, which founded the school in 1991 with eight elementary students, secured a $5 million loan for the first phase so the high school’s construction can begin now on the 100-acre campus in Santa Fe Valley, where Maranatha Christian Schools has been located since 2006.

“We have the blessing of the board of Maranatha Chapel,” she said. “They are completely behind us.”

The remaining aspects of Phase 1 will begin when funding permits, Partida said. There is to be a newly renovated and expanded athletic field area, a new performing arts black box studio plus additional funding for faculty salaries, especially since more teachers will be needed once the student body is able to grow after Maranatha’s high school students are no longer in temporary classrooms and sharing buildings with younger students.

The 2015-16 student population consists of 179 high school students (freshmen to senior), 156 junior high students (seventh and eighth grade), 218 elementary students (kindergarten to sixth grade) and 206 preschoolers, according to Francine Good, Maranatha’s director of marketing and development.

The new high school is to have 12 or 13 classrooms on its upper level, which includes two state-of-the-art dedicated science labs with a separate prep storage room. The lower level will have dedicated spaces for studio and digital arts, “maker-space” rooms that can be expanded for larger assemblies, a student center, additional classrooms, a conference area and teachers’ lounge.

Maranatha opened its high school for the 2006-07 academic year, when it had 38 students among its freshman and sophomore classes.

Officials said all Maranatha students will benefit from the first phase of an eventual four-phase expansion. Later phases are to add a junior high building, library/media resource/administration building and a performing arts/gym/multi-purpose building. No timeline has been announced for these later phases.

With 75 percent of the junior high and high school students participating in athletics, the field renovation will give them more space to practice their respective sports when that project is completed in a year or so, said Maranatha’s Athletics Director Steve Whitley.

“We are one of the few Christian schools (in the area) to see an increase in enrollment ... and now need to accommodate the growth in our athletic program for the junior high and high school. ... (Field) space is at a premium.”

Plans call for moving over the football field and flipping around the baseball field so a new soccer field can be installed between them. This will allow not only more multipurpose and soccer field space on the campus for students, but the community since some sports leagues in 4S Ranch rent field time from the school.

Whitley, who is also Maranatha’s baseball coach, said the baseball field renovation will make it unique in the county since it will be designed to look like baseball fields of a bygone era, including a non-electric scoreboard.

“It will look like an old-fashioned ballpark of the ‘30s or ‘40s,” he said. “(We chose this) because baseball is the only sport with a deep history, of more than 100 years. We have a lot of traditionalists here and want a better fan experience.”

He said Maranatha’s baseball field will likely become a “destination” for teams who want to experience “a throw back to the old days.”

There are practical reasons for also flipping home plate from the northeast to northwest corner, he said. Since it opened, teams have had to schedule games dependent on sunlight — or cancel them — since late in the afternoon the batters are blinded by the sun and cannot see the pitcher. The renovation will solve this problem plus another dealing with the wind.

“It will definitely be a more fun place to play,” Whitley said.

Maranatha will have to remove its six-lane track, which Whitley said did not meet CIF regulations for meets. Each year Maranatha hosts one and has to hold it elsewhere, often at Cal State San Marcos, so continuing that once the track is gone is not a big deal. If left in place, the track needed at least $250,000 in renovations, he added.

There will be a strip with track lanes so students can practice sprints and hurdles, plus an area to practice jumping and throwing events, he said. A press box and bleachers are also in the plans.

“Building a new high school and expanding our athletic fields will allow students to increase their potential and fulfill their calling in Christ through academics, arts and athletics,” MCS Superintendent Jess Hetherington told the Maranatha community earlier this year.

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