A few days before campuses on the traditional calendar re-opened for the 2013-14 school year, IUSD quietly hit a significant milestone: Enrollment climbed past 30,000 students.

If you build it they will come. And if you don’t build it, they will come.

That’s the reality facing IUSD’s facilities team as the district moves forward with plans to construct its fifth comprehensive high school near the northeast border of the Orange County Great Park.

IUSD is another step closer to beginning construction on its fifth comprehensive high school after receiving word that the proposed site has been cleared for use by the state Department of Toxic Substances Control.

Back in July, the IUSD Board of Education approved the second phase of an ambitious effort to harness solar energy, green-lighting plans to add vehicle shade structures topped with photovoltaic panels to the parking lots of nine c

Facilities consultant Tony Ferruzzo and representatives from HMC Architects discussed IUSD’s plans for a fifth comprehensive high school on Tuesday and gave board members a virtual tour of the newly designed campus.