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Dennis Evanosky

District offices in the historic Alameda High School building will need to relocate until the building is retrofit.

The Alameda Adult School (AAS) and the Alameda Unified School District (AUSD) main offices will have to be relocated. The portions of the Historic Alameda High School (HAHS) that house the two educational institutions are seismically unsafe.

The California Department of General Services Division of the State Architect (DSA) is the state agency responsible for the structural safety of the state's K-12 schools.

With the power granted to it by the Field Act in 1933, the DSA has the ability to certify, or de-certify, California schools as seismically safe.

The DSA's recent inspections of the main HAHS building's east wing, where the district office is housed, and the AAS building led the agency to determine that AUSD will have to retrofit these structures.

The state agency also determined the school district will have to remodel entrances and exits of the main HAHS building.

Because the district does not currently have the money to retrofit all its Field Act de-certified facilities, it will only work to fix the main HAHS building's entrances and exits.

The district will move the main office and the adult school; these facilities will remain empty for an indefinite period of time. The district will not have to retrofit the portion of the main HAHS building that students now occupy.

The students attend classes above Kofman Auditorium, which the district had seismically retrofitted in 1998. Only the east wing of the main building needs repairs. Parents should be assured "that their students attend classes in state-certified Field Act-compliant classrooms," said Robert Shemwell, the school district's chief business officer. The district will move the adult school in the next few weeks. It is not certain where it will be moved, but due to the limited amount of district space, it's unlikely all of its classes will continue this semester. "Our hope is that nighttime classes will be able to continue this term with minimal disruption. Daytime classes may face greater disruption," Shemwell said in an AUSD document.

As for where the district office will move, "We have to evaluate all the options available to us," Shemwell said. He said that the district would move the main office this summer.

AUSD will contact an architectural firm in the coming weeks to start the HAHS exit-entrance project on the main building soon. Students and staff near the remodeling will not need to relocate. AUSD is currently conducting a district-wide structural study of all its buildings. When the study is complete in the spring, the district will start to look for funds to do further upgrades and retrofits.