Students in the Vista Unified School District returned to school on Wednesday, but for one group, this was no ordinary start.
Their campus was completely rebuilt with state-of-the-art facilities.
Bobier Elementary School, which was originally built in 1956, was torn down two years ago after voters approved a bond measure for the $100 million rebuild.
“The old Bobier was over 60 years old. And in definite need of repair and improvements,” principal Melanie Paliotti said.
During construction, Bobier students attended classes at Beaumont Elementary School. That campus was closed because of low enrollment. Paliotti said students there were absorbed into Bobier.
With Bobier reopened, the Beaumont site is once again vacant.
“So Beaumont will be there until we have another plan for it,” Vista Unified School Board Trustee Martha Alvardo said. “We do have a long-range facilities master plan, a committee that's formed to give us the board recommendations on what to do with that actual piece of real estate.”
Money for the Bobier rebuild came from Measure LL, a $247 million bond passed in 2018. The campus was upgraded with solar panels that provide nearly all of the school's energy needs.
The school also has a new state-of-the-art heating, ventilation and air conditioning system, a synthetic playfield, 84,000 square feet of space, modern classrooms and a STEAM lab.
It’s important that students are exposed to STEAM (science, technology, engineering, arts and math) at the elementary level to keep all doors open for them, Paliotti said.
“We don't know exactly what the future job market 15 years from now may look like, but they need to be resilient and have those problem-solving skills and communication skills to do anything that comes their way in the future,” she said.
Theresa Woodward, the STEAM lab teacher, said the program began last year, but it wasn’t at the scale the new facility offers.
“We're super excited to really evolve the program and have students really experiencing … a true STEAM program,” she said.
Students can learn robotics and coding, but Woodward said the program is tailored to their education level. She teaches kindergarten through fifth grade.
“We work with them step by step. Everything is always displayed for them — very hands-on programs,” Woodward said. “It's really just more of an exploration.”
Teachers aren’t the only ones excited about the new campus. Parents are too.
“It's beautiful. I can't believe it,” Megan Pederson said. “Actually, compared to their old school, it's, like, huge and really nice.”
This is Pederson’s daughter's second year at Bobier. Last year, she attended classes at the Beaumont campus.
Orion Cook was equally impressed with the new campus.
“I couldn't believe how nice it was inside, and I never really even had the time to see it from the outside,” he said.
“And it’s near McDonald's,” his son, Chance, interrupted.
“That’s why he likes it,” Cook added, laughing.
It seems the fourth-grader’s mind was still elsewhere on the first day of school.
