This Fall will mark 130 years since Long Beach Poly High opened its doors. Back in 1895, two years before the city even formally incorporated, the school was known as Long Beach High School. In the intervening century-plus, the school has undergone many changes and moves, all while producing more professional athletes than any other high school in the country along with many well-known musicians, actors, and academics. Few of those transformations were as big or bold as the one that began a few weeks ago, as the Long Beach Unified School District officially broke ground on a $450 million campus renovation at Poly, the biggest change to the city’s flagship school since the 1933 earthquake that leveled it.
The money comes from two LBUSD bonds that were passed by Long Beach voters, a fact brought up by most speakers at the groundbreaking ceremony hosted on campus.
“I’m happy for the public to see what we’ve been up to,” said LBUSD superintendent Jill Baker in an interview after. “Especially the voters who voted in the funds to be able to do this. It’s involved a lot of staff and students and others in the design of what’s coming to fruition here. I’m super excited for this to happen, and the accelerated timeline that this project is going to operate on–we’re going to make it happen.”
The school’s baseball field has been populated with portable classrooms that will host classes displaced by the phased construction that will happen over the next six years. New buildings will include a three-story classroom building that hosts simulation labs, medical classes, a cutting-edge auto shop, and others. Every building on campus is getting air conditioning, and the school is getting a new multi-story gym, aquatic facility, and other classroom buildings.
The school’s historic quad and rose garden is being preserved, but the buildings surrounding it will be upgraded into modern classrooms.
The displayed renderings depict a revitalized Poly campus that retains several of the historically significant architectural elements (the school’s public works arts projects and mid-century design have both received academic and artistic studies and praise). At the same time, the renderings show a modern campus that looks almost more like a state of the art college than it does like a high school.
It’s a much-needed transformation at a campus that has largely stood static over the last 80 years, and yet has managed to continue to produce high-level students (leading all high schools west of the Mississippi in Ivy League acceptances) as well as athletes and creative artists.
“I’m super happy for our students,” said Baker. “When I think about the brilliance that each and every day walks these halls and goes into classrooms and does that with the facilities that they have…It’s hard for teachers to think about the future but be teaching in a facility that doesn’t have all the things they need to be advancing into the future. I’m super excited for the technology we’ve seen in other schools that have been transformed–Jordan most recently–and how it changes the mindset of both teachers and students on what is possible. And what is possible, based on this plan, is tremendous.”
The district hosted several focus groups with students, staff, and community members as part of the design process for the transformation, which will see every corner of the historic campus improved in one way or another. The last time the Poly campus got this much attention was after the 1933 earthquake, which flattened the school and much of the city. Poly legend Billie Jean King’s father, Bill Moffitt, was across the street when the quake struck and the school’s iconic dome collapsed in on itself. At that time Poly was known for a wide-open college-like campus that included wisteria and many Grecian design elements, with pillars and the central come.
Over the next few years as the new campus came together, Poly students attended class in tents on Burcham Field, with music classes next door to math classes and separated only by canvas sheets, making for a fun yet challenging outdoor class atmosphere for students and teachers alike.
Those gathered for the school’s groundbreaking will surely be happy to not recreate that scene in 2025, although they will get to live through the same sense of revival and renewal that students in the 30s and 40s did. The groundbreaking ceremony featured local luminaries like Baker and Long Beach Mayor Rex Richardson, but also featured several student performances by Poly’s marching band and cheerleaders, as well as a speech from Poly student body president Rylee Ignacio.
At the conclusion of the ceremony, officials from the city, LBUSD, and Board of Education lifted shovelfuls of dirt and turned them over to mark the start of construction.
“It’s a special day for a lot of us who’ve been here,” said longtime Poly boys’ athletic director Rob Shock.
“We have so many amazing kids here, I’m excited for them,” said Poly girls’ athletic director and track coach Crystal Irving. “It’s a special day for Poly.”
