Yosemite School Finally Discarding Portables for New Construction

A high school next door to Yosemite National Park will be replacing seven portables that have been in use for "decades" with a new 6,000-square-foot, five-classroom building. Mariposa County Unified School District, with 1,700 students, has already begun the work of demolishing the existing portable structures on the campus of its high school.

According to local reporting, the $4 million project received funding from a 2016 bond initiative passed by county voters. The new classrooms will include new technology and furniture, according to Superintendent Jeff Aranguena.

The district said it hoped to finish construction in the spring and begin using the new building in the fall.

About the Author

Dian Schaffhauser is a former senior contributing editor for 1105 Media's education publications THE Journal, Campus Technology and Spaces4Learning.

Featured

  • Spaces4Learning Launches 2026 Facilities and Construction Brief Survey

    Spaces4Learning recently launched the 2026 Facilities and Construction Brief Survey, which collects data on the previous year’s K–12 and higher education construction projects nationwide.

  • Q&A: How to Prevent Kitchen Grease Fires in Commercial Kitchens

    School cafeterias and university dining halls serve thousands of meals daily, relying on high-heat equipment like fryers, grills, and ovens. While these operations keep students fed, they also generate significant grease-laden vapors. Without proper controls, this grease becomes a silent fire threat. As a certified exhaust cleaning specialist and business coach who has helped hundreds of institutional facilities achieve NFPA 96 compliance, I emphasize that proactive grease management isn’t optional; it’s a core fire/life safety practice.

  • Dallas ISD Voters Approve $6.2B Bond Package

    Dallas ISD voters have approved a record-setting $6.2-billion bond package that district leaders say will modernize aging campuses, eliminate portable classrooms and reshape learning environments across one of the nation’s largest school systems.

  • Opportunity by Design Framework

    Opportunity by Design

    Educational improvement efforts often focus on curriculum, instruction, assessment, professional development, and intervention systems while treating the physical school building as background. But school design is not a passive backdrop to learning — it is a structural lever for equity.