Demolition of Alisal Community and Fremont schools will begin this summer.
UPDATED June 21, 2023
Demolition of Fremont Elementary will begin on June 22. The first building to be demolished is in the back of the main building. The main building is scheduled to be demolished the week of June 26.
Demolition of Alisal Community is scheduled to begin the week of July 10.
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Demolition of Alisal USD two oldest school buildings, at Alisal Community and Fremont Elementary, will begin this summer The demolition is the second phase of reconstructing the schools that date from the first half of the 20th century and had become dilapidated from use.
The main building of Alisal Community School was built in 1936 with funding from the Works Progress Administration. The building replaced the one-room school that was transported from the Chualar area to the corner of Del Monte and Williams in the early 1930s. It was at a time of great influx of economic migrants escaping the Dust Bowl, considered the greatest man-made ecological disaster of the 20th century in the United States. Even though the country was in the midst of the Great Depression, there were plenty of jobs in agriculture, which attracted hundreds of Dust Bowl refugees to Monterey County from Oklahoma, Arkansas, Texas and Missouri. It was a period of great expansion in the unincorporated area of Monterey County known as Alisal.
Alisal Union School District continued to grow as the need for classrooms in the Alisal increased. In 1941, the District opened Fremont Elementary School on its current site at 1255 E. Market St.
After more than 60 years of use, Alisal officials began searching for ways to do major upgrades to the oldest schools. On Nov. 8, 2016, East Salinas voters approved Measure M, a $70-million bond for repairing and updating school infrastructure. It received a 73 percent approval rate.
Measure M funds are being used for revamping Alisal Community School and Fremont Elementary. Phase I of the project, the completion of a two-story building at Fremont was completed in June 2021, and a similar two-story building was completed at Alisal Community in December 2021.
Demolition and reconstruction of both schools is Phase II of the project. Both projects are expected to remain active during the 2023-24 school year.
UPDATED June 21, 2023
