Modernizations at all four OUSD high schools create beautiful new, on-site athletic facilities for students and community.
ORANGE, CA (February 8, 2019, 2019) – In May 2018, the Orange Unified School District (OUSD) Board of Trustees unanimously approved the modernization of football and track facilities at Villa Park High School (VPHS). The facility upgrades will ensure that Spartan athletes, students and community members will safely enjoy world-class athletic and fitness opportunities.
The modernized athletic fields will feature the installation of environmentally-beneficial synthetic turf, all-weather rubberized tracks and other improvements. Student athletes have been using the existing athletic fields for decades and the conditions of both the fields and the tracks at all three high schools are past their prime. At VPHS, track and field facilities are much-loved community assets and used by students and neighbors alike for physical fitness activities such as walking and jogging. The improvements will provide students and the community with safer surfaces for athletic competition and recreational use, reduce day-to-day maintenance costs for the school district and weather-related “down time,” and eliminate the need for, and the cost and impacts associated with, irrigation and fertilization.
“We are extremely grateful that the District approved these new facilities for our students and community,” said Villa Park High School Principal Kenneth Miller, Ed.D. “Our student-athletes deserve world-class facilities and our neighbors benefit with new community assets that we can all enjoy.”
Timing was essential for this series of facility improvements since Fred Kelly Stadium, located in Orange, closed in December 2018 for a complete rebuild to comply with the federal Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). Villa Park High School utilizes the stadium for varsity football and other athletic events. The renovation of Villa Park’s facilities will allow a full complement of sporting events to take place on the Spartan’s home turf for the first time in decades.
The high school athletic field renovations will utilize capital project reserves that the district designated for this purpose and has been saving over the past decade. No “Measure S” school bond dollars, which were approved by voters in 2016, will be used for these updates. In conjunction with the sports facilities, our Measure S project broke ground this month and will begin construction in late spring. Together, the two separate modernization projects will transform the Villa Park High School campus.
The renovations will take place in two stages. Stage one is the completion of the new synthetic track and field, complete with VPHS branding, by mid-February 2019 for use by the school’s student-athletes. Stage two will see the completion of additional sitework such as ADA accessible pathways and fencing. The District anticipates the entire project to be complete by August 2019. Once the entire project is completed, it will be released for student athletic use and District-approved community events.
