When Christian Brothers High School students return to classes Aug. 17, they will see some major improvements to their Sacramento campus.

Over the past eight months, Christian Brothers has converted an annex building into three new classrooms, renovated baseball and softball fields, and made major improvements to the school’s main athletic field.

Lorcan Barnes, president, said the school is doing some “catch-up work,” investing in facilities to keep pace with innovative curriculum and athletic programs being offered to students.

“We have a lot of hopes and dreams to improve our campus,” he said. “Our facilities need to be as excellent as the experiences already taking place in classrooms and on the field.”

To meet the needs of the fine arts program, which has experienced tremendous growth in recent years, Christian Brothers is converting a 5,400-square-foot annex building previously used for storage into three new classrooms. The project will create two music classrooms, one for instrumental music and one choir room, featuring a 50-inch plasma television screen to study performances. A third room has been dedicated for science classes.

“For years this space has been totally underutilized,” Barnes said. “Now we’ll have vibrant teenagers singing and playing instruments right in the middle of the campus.”

Ron Slabbinck, the school’s director of visual and performing arts, is eager to have adequate and vastly improved classrooms for a popular choir program, which in recent years has grown from 64 to more than 100 students.

The school’s honors choral group and vocal jazz ensemble were among nine groups statewide honored this year by being selected to perform at the California Music Educator Association’s state convention.

In June, 35 singers from the five Christian Brothers choirs completed a European tour which included performing with a children’s choir at a Catholic church in Belgium.

A measure of the talent of the school’s instrumental program is that two of its members, seniors Randolph Palada and Keith Lui, were ranked first in the nation by the National Association for Music Education. Palada was ranked first chair on clarinet and Lui first chair on English horn.

The east annex renewal project, which began in April and will be completed in August, will cost $850,000. The project is being funded by a $500,000 gift from the estate of Michael Cunningham from the class of 1967, a $200,000 loan from an alumnus and six individual gifts.

The school is also completing a series of athletic field improvements including renovation to the main athletic field, used primarily for football, women’s soccer and rugby.

The $33,000 project, funded by the school’s alumni association, honors Ray Clemons, a beloved mentor and coach who died last December. Total overhaul of the field surface began in August and will be ready for Christian Brothers’ first home football game in September.

Improvements to both the baseball and softball fields were completed during the 2005-2006 school year.

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