Paragon holds ribbon cutting ceremony for new classrooms
Nov. 29—Marysville city officials joined Paragon Collegiate Academy board members on Monday morning to celebrate the recent addition of two new classrooms at the charter school that are meant to offer more science-related fields of study for its students.
With members of the city council in attendance, Paragon Principal Javier Lopez and its CEO Serafin Alvarez spoke of the importance of the new additions in the charter school's mission of ensuring all of its students have a clear pathway toward a college degree.
"Needless to say, today is a very special day for all of us here — all students, all staff, all visitors that we have here with us this morning," Lopez said at Monday's ribbon cutting ceremony in front of an audience filled with students, staff, parents and officials.
As a way to highlight the school's goal of making college attainable for all of its students, each classroom at the school is named for a certain university — Sac State, Princeton and Texas A&M, among others.
"That is our goal as a staff. To make sure we help you get there," Lopez said.
Construction for the two additional classrooms at Paragon, which started in May, was sought after the charter school began an FFA chapter for middle school students. According to the FFA website, "FFA is an intracurricular student organization for those interested in agriculture and leadership."
And while traditionally it was intended for students who wanted to become farmers, the organization has since evolved over time.
"The letters 'FFA' stand for Future Farmers of America. These letters are a part of our history and our heritage that will never change. But FFA is not just for students who want to be production farmers; FFA also welcomes members who aspire to careers as teachers, doctors, scientists, business owners and more," the website states. "... Today, the National FFA Organization remains committed to the individual student, providing a path to achievement in premier leadership, personal growth and career success through agricultural education. FFA continues to help the next generation rise up to meet those challenges by helping its members to develop their own unique talents and explore their interests in a broad range of agricultural career pathways. So today, we are still the Future Farmers of America. But, we are the Future Biologists, Future Chemists, Future Veterinarians, Future Engineers and Future Entrepreneurs of America, too."
With the expansion at Paragon, Alvarez said in total about 2,000-square-feet of new space was added to the school.
"We added FFA as a chapter last year," Alvarez said. "FFA is a little bit rare to have in middle school, but definitely wanted Marysville to have an FFA middle school chapter. So, we started up last year. That's what prompted us to needing a new classroom for ag science ... and then right next door is sixth grade."
Alvarez said the school now has new microscopes, science tables and other modern teaching tools.
"We needed a full-size, standalone science room," Alvarez said during a tour of the new classrooms after Monday's ceremony. "... The room is all full of technology. ... Now with the ag science and FFA ... all of the technology and the new microscopes, I think it will definitely get us, hopefully, to keep increasing those science scores."
Marysville Community Development Director Dan Flores said the city helped the school in the planning and approval process to get the new classrooms ready for the new school year.
Alvarez said the design of the roof for the new classrooms was to prepare the school for the possibility of adding solar panels in the near future to help ease utility costs.
"The whole goal is to put in solar," Alvarez said. "We needed space facing that way for solar. So, we kind of designed it that way ... (to) hopefully put in a lot of solar. The other side is 100% solar. ... We're hoping, if the budget allows, to start that sometime next summer."
