Construction of the sprawling Buchholz campus cost $2.4 million. Progress lagged behind schedule in spring and summer 1970, forcing the school board to develop an improvised class schedule for the fall. When the new school year resumed after Labor Day 1970, students living within the prospective Buchholz school zone who were entering grade 10 remained at Westwood Junior High School, which shifted to a split, double-shift schedule. Construction of Eastside High was also behind schedule, forcing its prospective students to remain at Howard Bishop Jr. High, which also operated on a double-shift schedule. Buchholz's first football team, a Junior Varsity squad, played its first season out of Westwood in fall 1970, utilizing two trailers (one for the offense and one for the defense.)