RANCHO SANTA MAGARITA : Classes Under Way at Makeshift School

Amid the dry desert hills, scrubby cactuses and new housing tracts along Santa Margarita Parkway, a new school has sprouted without a single permanent building.

“It’s just like moving into an apartment before you get your new house--the kids are excited,” said Larry Callison, principal of Cielo Vista Elementary, which set up shop this fall in 19 portable buildings on the campus of Trabuco Mesa Elementary. Children will attend the temporary facility until their 10-acre campus one mile away is completed in December.

Administrators had expected only about 500 children to attend the school, but on the first day more than 570 showed up.

The school has five classrooms full of kindergartners, more than any other school in the district, but only about 30 sixth-graders. The school serves Robinson Ranch, Coto de Caza, Rancho Santa Margarita and other new housing developments in the Trabuco Canyon area.

The temporary quarters have forced both students and teachers to compromise. Storage space and parking are at a premium. Students also must share a multipurpose room, computer lab and playground with Trabuco Mesa.

But Callison said these are just temporary inconveniences, since the new 10-acre campus will have vast playgrounds and a new, state-of-the art computer laboratory. Callison said he also hopes to integrate special education and disabled students at the new campus.

And when the day comes when the children can finally leave their makeshift school, the principal said he hopes to do it in grand style.

“We’ll have (the students) all march over on the day it opens. That way it will be something special,” Callison said.