Publication Date: Wednesday, June 30, 2004
For lease: Garland school
For lease: Garland school
(June 30, 2004) School district seeking new tenant for vacant site
by Alexandria Rocha
The Garland school site, located north of the Oregon Expressway, should get some new tenants in time for the 2005-2006 school year.
The school district is looking to lease the site, which closed due to declining enrollment in 1979. The district is seeking a 10-year lease with a minimum annual rent of $650,000.
Possible uses for those funds have yet to be identified.
Since its closure, the 6-acre site has housed a variety of schools. Most recently, Garland served as a temporary home for Nixon Elementary while that school's campus underwent renovation.
Before Nixon, the Garland site was used as a temporary home for Terman Middle School from 2001-2003. Prior to that, it was leased to both Mid-Peninsula High School and Peninsula French American School from 1986 to 2000.
Along with a slew of other district schools in the late '70s to mid '80s, Garland was closed due to declining enrollment. During that period, the district shut down nearly half of its schools.
Julie Jerome, a former school board president, was the parent of a Garland third-grader when the school closed. She said the district's enrollment peaked at about 16,000 students in the mid-'70s. After that, enrollment rapidly dropped.
"There just weren't new people coming in," Jerome said.
June Schiller, a former teacher and principal in the district, said Garland's neighbors have kept a close watch over the entities that have passed through the site's doors. She said the neighborhood is glad the district is looking to again lease the site, and not allowing it to sit vacant as it has in the past.
"During those (vacant) years, we had built wooden play structures and twice someone burned them. It's never good to have a school be empty," Schiller said. "We would love to have Garland open again, but we know the district can't do that because of enrollment."
Even though Garland school closed more than two decades ago, there's still a group of parents and former students who gather every year in Foothill Park for a Thanksgiving breakfast.
With the Garland bid going out in July, the district is keeping abreast of the current upswing in student enrollment. The district is expecting to grow anywhere from 100 to 500 students over the next five years.
In preparation, the district is reserving the right to take back Garland if the need arises.
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