Educator Gets Wish to Head Father’s School

Dreams do come true. Just ask Olga Okell.

During her 36 years as an educator in the Paramount Unified School District, Okell had one burning desire: to become principal of the school named after her late father, civic leader Harry Wirtz.

The Paramount school board fulfilled that wish recently when it decided to reopen Wirtz Elementary School to accommodate a growing enrollment and to appoint Okell as principal. The school had been converted to a high school annex in 1971, when enrollment was declining.

Okell, 57, who was principal at Wesley Gaines Elementary School, was the only applicant for the new position. “I always wanted to be principal of dad’s school. I’m thrilled,” she said.

“There was an indication that the other district principals wanted her to have it,” board member Shirley Elliott said. “She’s qualified. It’s her hometown. The school’s named after her father. I felt she should have it.”

Okell has lived and worked all her life in Paramount, except for the four years that she attended San Jose State University. She married her hometown sweetheart, Arthur Okell, who died in 1958.

The elementary school was built in 1951. Wirtz was involved in banking, real estate and insurance in the area and served on a local school board before the Paramount Unified School District was formed.

Elementary enrollment in Paramount has been growing by 400 to 500 students a year in the last five years, and the trend is expected to continue for the next four or five years, Assistant Supt. Donald E. McGuigan said.

The 12,500-student district covers Paramount and parts of Lakewood, Long Beach and South Gate. The 1,000 high school students and 30 teachers in the annex will return to the high school campus, where 41 new classrooms have been built.

Okell joined the district in 1954 after graduating from San Jose State and taught briefly at Wirtz.

There is a sparkle in her eyes these days as she prepares to reopen the school. The building, which will have an enrollment of 700 students, will receive a $260,000 face-lift, including a coat of paint, kitchen and roof repairs and playground equipment.

Okell also will restore the name of her father on the building, which had been nameless during its years as an annex to Paramount High.