The William S Hart Union High School District has announced that Castaic High School won't be built for at least another four years, which feels more like "forever" for those in the Castaic area with students either at or near high school age. It's no secret that the Castaic High School project has been fighting an uphill battle since its inception, with developer issues, design wars (ultra-modern vs modular), finger-pointing and other political nonsense running rampant. For the uninitiated, Castaic High School was supposed to be built on land allocated to the Hart School District by SunCal as part of SunCal's proposed Castaic North Lake project. SunCal's project has been mired in the Los Angeles County approval process for quite a while now, and nobody seems to know when it will be taken out of limbo. SunCal even went so far as to send marketing messages to Castaic residents late last year, urging residents to petition the County for early (as in slam-dunk) approval of the project by waving the high school issue in front of their noses as bait. However, SunCal also managed to shoot itself in the foot at the same time by revoking its original plan to provide recreational facilities on the property, thus restarting the public outcry against the overall project plan and further delaying the project at the County level. I don't think I'm alone in wondering why the Castaic High School project was tied to a new home development in the first place. This is a high school, not an elementary school! High schools tend to be regional and with higher populations than the more neighborhood-oriented elementary schools. Regardless of SunCal's challenges with the Los Angeles County Planning Commission, would they begin construction on that project right away if approved tomorrow? Likely not, in my humble opinion... The real estate market is simply not doing as well as it has in recent years. If Lennar can't sell reduced-price homes in Valencia, how would SunCal fare with a release of new homes in the northern portion of the Castaic area? For some reason, the William S Hart Union High School district has been very reluctant to explore other potential sites for Castaic High School. Sure, the promise of having a pre-graded site provided free of charge from SunCal is definitely enticing, but what's the real cost of this "free" land at this point? Other local high schools have been mandated to absorb the growing Castaic population of high-school-age children, creating overcrowding and budget challenges in those schools. The Castaic kids need to be transported to these other schools, which isn't free of charge either. And then there's the emotional cost of splitting up families and friends as some are allocated to one school in the district, and others allocated to a different school across town. We're not talking small numbers here either... The freshman (ninth grade) class at Valencia High School, which has this year's incoming freshmen from Castaic included in its population, makes up at least one-third of the total population of the school. The same impact will likely be seen with next year's incoming freshman class, since at this point the Castaic children will be transported to Valencia High for at least one more year. And of course the current year's freshman class will become sophomores at Valencia High. Can Valencia High handle this ever-increasing population? Likely not! Seems it's time for the Hart School District to explore other options, including the use of manufactured buildings on an alternate site. The manufactured buildings have already been shown to be reasonably attractive and time-saving, since the components can be prepared off-site while the land is being prepared, rather than waiting until the land is completely ready for building before starting the construction process. Castaic parents have vehemently opposed this idea in the past, claiming that these types of buildings aren't what they were promised ages ago, but now it seems it's time to get down to what the real bottom line is: A high school for the Castaic children. Castaic Town Council members were quoted in The Signal today as saying that the Hart School District's failure to provide a high school in Castaic "borders on criminal negligence", but then there were decisions made at the Castaic Town Council level that delayed this project as well. Let's get back on track, folks, and figure out how to build a high school in Castaic without any more lengthy delays! | 
