TUSTIN : First Day of School Also First at School

The classroom bells wouldn’t ring, and a few students began the day at the wrong grade level, but spirits were high on the first day of school Tuesday at Tustin Ranch Elementary, the city’s first new campus in more than two decades.

“It’s really a rare opportunity to attend a school that’s brand-new,” said Cheryl Masters, whose 7-year-old son, Joshua, began second grade Tuesday. “It was a new environment for all the children, not just some. And the day went off with no disasters, which is rare for the first day of any school year.”

The school, at Robinson and Keller drives, opened its doors to about 375 students Tuesday. The campus can accommodate as many as 600 students from kindergarten through fifth grade, officials said.

Principal Connie Smith said she was pleasantly surprised that the day passed with so few hitches.

“One thing I have learned is that people don’t deal well with the unknown,” she said. “Most everyone who came into this didn’t know the teachers’ names; they are new faces to all of these families, as well as a new facility and even a new start time and new pickup time. People were on edge before today, but once they got in, things were fine. It was like we’d been here for months. And as far as the kids go, I saw nothing but smiles.”

The $7-million, 10-acre campus, with facilities ranging from a high-tech multimedia center to not-so-high-tech gardening plots, is also the first to be built in the Tustin Ranch area, a master-planned community developed by the Irvine Co.

The school was financed in part by developer fees and through bonds issued by a special taxing district.

A special attraction of the school, parents said, is that the faculty members were selected personally by Smith, the principal.

“I liked the idea that one person was going to choose all the people who would be working together,” said Elain Nermon, who has two children at the school. “It was a positive move, I thought, that she would recognize personalities to blend and make a wonderful working unit.”

Tustin Ranch Elementary is the 19th school in the district, which was formed in 1972. The district serves 13,500 students and has a $54-million annual budget.