CHULA VISTA, Calif. (KGTV) -- Thousands of South Bay children will return to school next week in the Chula Vista Elementary School District and Sweetwater Union High School District. Both districts have year-round school schedules.
A little more than 500 of those children will attend San Diego County’s newest school. The first day ever for Saburo Muraoka Elementary School is this Wednesday. Construction on the $51 million school wrapped up this month.
“It’s a new school and lots of new faces,” said the school’s first principal Erin Dare.
Dare met with her faculty Thursday to develop a mission statement and start talking about mascots and school colors.
“They all were hired with the intent of being collaborative, innovate, problem solvers,” she said during a tour of the new school ahead of its grand opening Friday.
Muraoka is named for a Japanese man who immigrated to Chula Vista in 1915 and became a farmer and businessman. Saburo Muraoka lost everything when he was placed in a Japanese internment camp during World War II.
The school is just the latest in a long-term plan by CVESD to build schools to keep up with Chula Vista’s growing population.
“I think with the growing community we need to have schools to support the students,” said Dare.
Meanwhile, the Sweetwater Union High School District has no immediate plans to build a new middle or high school. A spokesperson told 10News, property is set aside for a middle school in near the Otay Ranch Town Center but design and construction would take at least four years if it started this year.
There are no plans for a high school even though teachers at the nearby Eastlake High School told 10News their school is over-crowded.
