GGUSD Celebrates New Athletic Facility at Rancho Alamitos

Wednesday, August 2, 2023

Assistant Superintendent of Secondary Education Dr. Stephanie Heflin, Rancho Alamitos Principal Linda Giuliani, ASB President Diana Nguyen, Superintendent Dr. Gabriela Mafi, GGUSD Board Trustee Lan Nguyen, GGUSD Board Vice President Teri Rocco, Garden Grove City Councilmember Cindy Ngoc Tran and Garden Grove City Councilmember John O’Neill.

Garden Grove Unified School District’s Board of Education hosted a ribbon cutting ceremony at Rancho Alamitos High School on August 1 to celebrate the grand opening of the school’s new state-of-the-art athletic facility which features a nine-lane all-weather synthetic turf track and field.

Superintendent Gabriela Mafi welcomed hundreds of attendees including elected officials, Rancho Alamitos High School athletes, staff, alumni, and families to the event. Before cutting the ceremonial ribbon, Board Vice President Teri Rocco, whose trustee area includes Rancho Alamitos High School, delivered the keynote speech.

“This new modern track and field provides our athletes a spectacular setting to compete and win and I know they will,” Rocco said. “It is also a wonderful new setting for our outstanding Rancho Alamitos Marching Band and Color Guard to practice on as they prepare for an exciting season of competitions.”

Last year, Vaquero fans celebrated as the boys football team earned its fifth consecutive league championship and boys track earned its fourth league championship since 2018. The girls track team is working hard to repeat the league championship earned in 2021.

“In GGUSD, we believe that a student’s participation in athletics and/or extracurricular activities greatly enriches their high school experience,” said Rocco. “Athletic programs help students’ develop important character skills like teamwork, leadership, and responsibility. These character skills will carry students far in life.”

Following the ceremonial ribbon cutting, Rocco and Trustee Lan Nguyen who also attended the ribbon cutting received certificates of recognition from several elected officials and posed for photos with hundreds of excited athletes.

The new track and field was funded in part by Measure P, a $311 million bond measure which received 76.3% approval from voters in 2016 and allowed the district to build 2 state-of-the-art athletic stadiums, including the Michael A. Monsoor Stadium at Garden Grove High School which opened in 2017 and the Stadium at Bolsa Grande High School which opened in 2019.

This is the second of three ribbon cuttings for the new state-of-the-art track and field which has been built at Santiago High School, Rancho Alamitos High School and Los Amigos High School. The Santiago ribbon cutting took place on June 26^th and the Los Amigos ribbon cutting will take place on Monday, August 7. Each project comes with a nine-lane new synthetic track, a synthetic turf field, long jump and triple jump pits, new LED lighting, 5-tier aluminum bleachers, athletic equipment and accessories, fencing, storage and ADA upgrades.