A MAJOR AFTER-SCHOOL PROJECT PRINCIPAL'S SON SAVES THE DAY.

Byline: Carol Rock Staff Writer

STEVENSON RANCH - Sometimes, all you have to tell teenagers is that something can't happen, and then they amaze you by getting it done.

When Bob Vincent was newly appointed as principal of West Ranch High School in 2003, he was given the blueprints for Golden Valley High School in Canyon Country, plans that would be mirrored across town at his campus.

On the layout, offices for assistant principals were located in several outlying buildings, something Vincent found unusual. Consulting with Golden Valley Principal Jacque Snyder, he asked if she wanted her administrators spread around campus.

``The architect disbursed them into smaller learning communities,'' Vincent said. ``But that doesn't work on a campus with 3,000 students.''

His requests for a redesign from district architects were met with resistance; because the roof and structural walls were already up in the buildings at Golden Valley, there wasn't time for revision.

Vincent didn't give up. He and Snyder believed their plan of centralizing administrative staff would be more efficient and that there must be a better way to work things out. So he went to Mike Otavka, director of facilities at the Hart district, who gave him a day to ``sketch something up.''

``We had to move quickly because they were about to go to bid on our buildings,'' Vincent said. ``So I took them home and asked my son, who had three years of computer-assisted drafting at Hart High School, if he could give them a look.''

Both father and son had put in a full day of work, but at 9:30 p.m., 17-year-old John Vincent unrolled the plans and sat down at his computer. While his parents slept, he worked through the night.

``Dad told me he needed offices for five administrators and five counselors and conference rooms,'' he said. ``I downloaded a free 30-day trial of AutoCAD to do it and had the plans ready for him at 5 the next morning.''

``I had great faith in him,'' Bob Vincent said. ``I told him here's what we have - a staff lounge area - and here's what we need. I didn't tell him how to do it. He moved the staff lounge to another area and had pieces that laid over the design templates from the district so I could show them how it would work.

``At 8 a.m., I dropped them off at Mike Otavka's office, and he called me later that morning to ask where I found an architect between 5 last night and this morning. I told him they were my son's designs.''

The drawings included renovations to heating and air-conditioning systems, electrical, telecommunications and data ports, as well as doors and locks. A hallway built between administration and counseling was redesigned to allow for an additional office and small conference room that better serves the students.

``Mike told me John did a very good job,'' Vincent said.

``It was the first project where I did the architectural design and got to see it built,'' John Vincent said, sitting in his father's office at West Ranch, which opens today for the 2005-06 school year. Home for the summer after attending his freshman year at California Lutheran University, he was getting his first peek at the actual building.

Although John's success in architecture will serve thousands of students, the college sophomore is leaning toward marketing and business for his future.

``I never felt pressured,'' John said, acknowledging that having both parents as educators, some kids do feel a squeeze. ``My parents did a great job. They gave me the will to be self- powered and motivated, and that's helped me through all the things I've experienced.''

Vincent's drafting teacher, Chuck Honnen, remembers the young man sharing his drawings with the class. Asked if he gave the student extra credit for his design, Honnen laughed and said Vincent was so ahead of his class, he didn't need it.

``His dad told him what they needed, and he put everything together,'' Honnen said. ``The architects said making the change would be too much work, but John went ahead and did it, even put in a few things to see if they would notice. They left everything the way he drew it and put their names on it.''

Carol Rock, [phone]

carol.rock(at)dailynews.com

CAPTION(S):

2 photos

Photo:

(1 -- color) Bob Vincent, principal of West Ranch High School, and his son, John, a sophomore at Cal Lutheran University, stand in a portion of the new administration building at West Ranch, part of which John redesigned.

(2) John Vincent, a sophomore at Cal Lutheran University, used AutoCAD, a design software, to refocus the plans for a new high school, at the request of his father.

Tom Mendoza/Staff Photographer