The Innovation Campus has cost around $115 million to construct and start-up, with millions of dollars more projected, according to a quarterly Citizens Bond Oversight Committee report. This cost includes two release phases for new Innovation Campus buildings.
Of the over $100 million spent so far, around $98 million of that has come from the Measure AA Bond, a Santa Clara County voter-approved measure from 2018 that allocated over a quarter billion dollars to the school district for improving education in Milpitas, according to the MUSD Innovation Campus Campaign page.
The entire Innovation Campus project is estimated to cost $139 million after all phases are completed, according to the website. Phase Two of the Innovation Campus construction included “reconfiguring a portion of the building to create an Advanced Manufacturing Lab, (and) a new Post Secondary Classroom” said the CBOC report from this October.
This new location stands to give students an innovative new learning experience, Principal and Chief Innovator of Milpitas High School Greg Wohlman said. Students don’t have to be looking to enter engineering to enroll in the extension, he said.
“There’s scores of opportunities available at this campus (In-novation) that that (main) campus can’t offer,” Wohlman said. “I just think that people here have a really unique opportunity to have a choice of multiple campuses that are all different and are offering either a different program or a different way to do school,” he added.
The new education style will better prepare students for college, said engineering teacher Kristin Berbawe, who teaches at Innovation Campus. The large budget allocated to the MHS extension also allows for much more freedom in obtaining supplies and materials for students, she said.
“I want my students to understand that they are the masters of their own destiny,” said Berbawe. “I want them to learn about themselves. and what their interests are, career-wise. And that may or may not involve engineering, but whatever they want to do in life, I want them to be able to explore that,” she added.
The different environment also appeals to students who moved from the main campus, said Sophomore Logeshwara Singh.
“So far, everything seems like it’s going to be exciting because of all the things that she (our engineering teacher) says that we’ll be doing”, Singh said. “That’s (The small enrollment size is) actually much better than the larger classes in here (main campus) because the teachers will actually be able to focus more on each student instead of dividing their attention”.