GJHS Building Info

A Storied Past, A Future Filled with Possibilities 

Grand Junction High School's 128-year history spans three centuries, 23 U.S. presidents, and a 3,000% jump in the population of Grand Junction.

GJHS has been located on three different campuses over the years, opening at the current 1400 N. Fifth St. location in 1956. The building was built to last 75 years. Although GJHS is a dozen years short of that mark, its useful life is fading faster than anticipated due to a sinking foundation and other structural problems. As a result, the building has an estimated one to five years of useable life left.

Grand Junction High School, 1400 N. Fifth St.

Building Issues

Grand Junction is still a great place to get a great education. However, the challenges of the building itself are numerous. Cracks scale exterior walls, school days have been lost to flooding and water issues, cockroach and mice issues are hard to contain, wiring for technology that could not be foreseen in 1956 snakes along walls, floors are uneven, certain classrooms are too small or dark, and  others have ventilation, heating and cooling issues.

AP Physics classroom at GJHS
Classroom with two entrances at GJHS
Wiring along walls in the GJHS hallway
Second floor classroom at GJHS
Office at GJHS
Uneven flooring in commons area
Additions to GJHS are housed in separate buildings with several entrances
Second floor hallway at GJHS
Cracks running along walls outside GJHS Auditorium
Cracks and uneven bricks outside the school
wrestling room with ripped banner
missing brick above entrance to boys locker room showers
boiler rooms beneath GJHS


Building Safety


The biggest concern when it comes to GJHS is security. Best practice in a post-Columbine world is to have one main entryway and to keep all other exterior doors locked as often as possible during the school day.

Because GJHS has multiple buildings not connected to the main building (including one building across Fifth Street), dozens of doors have to be unlocked at GJHS to allow students to move from class to class and building to building. Having a central entry point or a security vestibule - a safety feature at almost every D51 elementary and middle school that makes the public check in at the office before moving into the rest of the building - is not possible at Grand Junction High.

security guard
timeline

Franklin Building, 1st GJHS location, Dedicated Feb. 1891

What's Next?


The District 51 School Board recognizes that there is a time-sensitive problem with Grand Junction High School's building. Fixing the problem with a new building will be more cost-effective than trying to remodel the current building. However, both remodeling and rebuilding come with a price tag that is far above what the current budget allows.

The board will decide this summer whether to approve a bond measure question to replace GJHS and bring all Central, Fruita Monument, and Palisade high school buildings under one roof on each of their respective campuses to improve security. 


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Tiger statue outside Orange & Black Office