Sunnyside High School

Sunnyside High School is a high school in Fresno, California, USA. It is a part of the Fresno Unified School District. History In November 1989, Fresno area voters passed Measure A which changed the Fresno Unified School District's election process. The ballot measure had two parts, expanding the district governing board from five to seven members and requiring trustees to live in the areas they represent. At that time, three of the five trustees lived in the Bullard High School area, leading to claims of under-representation of other areas, such as Sunnyside, located in southeast Fresno. Under Measure A, the Sunnyside area received its own trustee seat, despite not having a dedicated high school yet. The other six trustee seats were slated to represent Bullard High, Edison High, Fresno High, Hoover High, McLane High, and Roosevelt High. Once campaigning for the new Sunnyside trustee seat began, many candidates stressed the need for building a new high school in the Sunnyside area to deal with rapid growth. Former Fresno Unified trustee Nancy Richardson won the Sunnyside seat in a June 1990 election and began serving her four-year term. To get the funding for constructing new facilities, Fresno Unified put a bond measure before voters in June 1995. The measure passed and the Sunnyside High School project received $48 million in funding. Overcrowding at existing Fresno schools was a very large concern, and a new campus had a chance to alleviate that issue. Over 300 people attended a groundbreaking ceremony in August 1997, starting construction of the Sunnyside campus. Construction took two years, and the school opened to students on August 23, 1999. It was Fresno Unified's first new high school since Hoover opened in 1963. John Marinovich was the school's first principal.