SAN JUAN CAPISTRANO : Trustees Name 4 Future Schools
The next batch of elementary schools in the Capistrano Unified School District will be named after South County’s first high school principal and three communities.
The district’s Board of Trustees recently voted to name the schools John S. Malcolm, Wood Canyon, Aliso Viejo and Arroyo Vista. The schools are scheduled to open in the next four years.
Among the rejected nominees were First Lady Barbara Bush and Gen. H. Norman Schwarzkopf.
It was the first time in 10 years that the board named elementary schools after communities rather than people.
Trustee Crystal Kochendorfer, who served on the panel that screened the names, said the community names had wide support.
The Malcolm school will be in the Beacon Hill area of Laguna Niguel. Malcolm was a principal and teacher at the defunct Capistrano Union High School from 1921 to 1957, when it was the only Orange County high school south of what is now the junction of the Santa Ana and San Diego freeways. He died in 1963.
“John Malcolm was a teacher I will remember all my life,” Orange County Sheriff Brad Gates wrote in a letter to the board. “He was a guiding friend who helped shape our character through deeds and example.”
Aliso Viejo and Wood Canyon elementary schools will be built in Aliso Viejo, while Arroyo Vista will be in Rancho Santa Margarita.
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