New high school in downtown San Jose should have a positive impact

Hillbrook School — an independent private school where annual tuition runs in the tens of thousands of dollars — cut the ribbon Monday on its new high school building in the old armory in downtown San Jose. It’s the first of two historic buildings the school plans to transform into state-of-the-art learning spaces that are within walking distance of a controversial, dilapidated former church and long-neglected St. James Park.

That location may surprise you, but Mark Silver, who has been Hillbrook’s head of school since 2009, says it’s the perfect place for his students to be and to learn.

“San Jose is an amazingly dynamic and diverse city,” he said. “We understand the value of taking students out into the real world and having them ask questions of real people.”

It’s a pairing that, in a strange way, owes its existence to pizza. You see, Chuck Hammers — the owner of the Pizza My Heart chain — served on Hillbrook’s board of trustees for 16 years and was a driving force behind the school’s expansion to downtown San Jose. Having served on the boards of both the San Jose Downtown Association and its Property Based Improvement District, he knew how bad downtown could be — and how much better it had gotten, thanks in part to the Groundwerx cleaning and safety teams he helped create.

“This school wouldn’t be here without Groundwerx,” said Hammers, who was honored Thursday night at the Visionary Circle dinner held at Hillbrook’s new downtown campus. “This park was a disaster before then, and now I think this school is going to go the other way and make it even better.”

Hillbrook, an 89-year-old institution that started as a boarding school, has classes for junior kindergarten through eighth grade at its Los Gatos campus. But the desire to open a high school, or “upper school” in Hillbrook’s parlance, began bubbling several years ago and really took off when Hillbrook was able to secure the use of two buildings, the armory and the Moir Building, an 1894 building on North First Street, from Urban Community — the development group led by Gary Dillabough and Jeff Arrillaga.

Last year, Hillbrook’s first class of ninth graders took classes at Adobe’s downtown headquarters while Anderson Brulé Architects was working on turning the 90-year-old Spanish Revival Armory into the school’s Art and Athletic Center, with a gym and five classrooms. Renovations are under way on the Moir Building — just a short walk along Devine Street away from the armory — and it is expected to open in a year, just in time to welcome Hillbrook’s third high school class.

While Hillbrook’s class sizes are very small, hundreds of people turned out for Monday’s ribbon-cutting event, including business leaders and elected officials. Silver made a point to acknowledge the presence of Shannon Hunt-Scott, chair of the school’s board of trustees, and her husband, Microsoft Chief Technology Officer Kevin Scott. “They are not just lead donors but have been tireless advocates for this project,” Silver said.