At January 9’s Milpitas Unified School District (MUSD) Board of Education meeting, Chief Business Officer and Assistant Superintendent Wendy Zhang announced that MUSD had secured a $1.5 million grant from the California Department of Public School Construction. The grant will help to offset the costs involved in building MUSD’s new Innovation Campus.
The grant money is expected to come in over the next two weeks.
An ongoing work in progress, the Innovation Campus has benefited from a variety of funding sources. An earlier $1.5 million was allocated for the project by Assemblymember Alex Lee’s District 24 Office. Other monies came from ballot Measure AA and global tech leader KLA, which put in $750,000 (there’s a “KLA STEAM lab” on the campus).
In a statement, Superintendent Cheryl Jordan gave Zhang praise for her direct, proactive involvement in securing the new grant:
“Assistant Superintendent Zhang has brought us $1.5M closer to achieving our Capital Campaign goal of $18M,” said Jordan. “Our team inspires exceptional possibilities that are being realized as we continue to build the MUSD Innovation Campus and the learning opportunities it will provide for our middle school through adult learners.”
The 99,000-square-foot campus will offer educational opportunities in entrepreneurship, law, health, finance, robotics, construction, virtual reality, Audio/Video production, manufacturing, coding, artificial intelligence, machine learning, computer science, and more.
Said newly appointed Board of Education President Minh Ngo, “Major global industries are requiring new skill sets to be successful. The MUSD Innovation Campus will provide our learners the opportunity to explore competitive future ready careers.”
MUSD continues to seek the partnership and support of individuals, businesses, educators, government entities, and financiers to help them achieve their Innovation Campus goals. Notably, the campus was built in an eco-friendly manner, complete with energy efficient lighting and water-efficient landscaping.
