Schools connected with Naval Base San Diego and Camp Pendleton will receive more than $38 million in Defense Department grants for construction of new buildings or renovations on campuses, officials said.
The grants are part of $62 million the government is offering to California and Virginia. The other recipient is Fort Belvoir in Virginia.
San Diego schools will receive $34.1 million to renovate and expand Miller and Hancock elementary schools. The two schools serve more than 1,350 students in pre-kindergarten through fifth grade.
At Camp Pendleton, the Fallbrook Union Elementary School District will receive $4.6 million for designs for new campuses – Mary Fay Pendleton and San Onofre Elementary/Middle schools – which are set to serve more than 1,850 students in kindergarten through eighth grade.
At Fort Belvoir, about $23 million will be used at the on-base elementary school. The project will serve more than 1,590 students in kindergarten through sixth grade.
The Pentagon’s Office of Economic Adjustment is administering the grants as part of the Public Schools on Military Installations program.
California has benefitted from the program in the past. Recent recipients of the school grants include:
- Naval Air Weapons Station China Lake, in the Mojave desert, which received $57 million for Sierra Sands district schools, and
- Edwards Air Force Base, which received $1.1. million for Muroc Joint Unified schools.
According to a 2013 release from the office, officials “must give priority consideration to those military installations with schools having the most serious capacity or facility condition deficiencies, as determined by the July 2011 Deputy Secretary of Defense Priority List.”
The office’s website says officials aid communities in adjusting “to defense industry cutbacks, base closures, force-structure realignments, base expansion, and incompatibilities between military operations and local development.”
– Defense Department News contributed to this report.
