Wood Ranch School Marks Opening

The floors aren’t scuffed yet, the paint is fresh, the concrete glows white, and a pristine stucco bell tower looms above it all.

Students, parents and teachers gathered last week for the official opening of Wood Ranch Elementary School, Simi Valley’s first new school in nearly three decades.

“It’s very exciting. Everything is new,” said Claudia Bishop, who teaches kindergarten at the school which serves kindergartners to sixth-grade students. “To even put a staple in a wall is such a new deal.”

Bishop was one of the 29 Wood Ranch teachers who showed off their new classrooms, which have been bustling with 576 students since the school opened Sept. 8.

Rooms are speckled with new computers, new desks and shiny plastic chairs. Even the computer mouse pads are new.

New facilities, however, bring unique challenges, Principal Karyn Cryster said.

“You have to start everything from the very beginning. You have to reinvent the wheel,” she said. “It’s exciting. We get to do everything exactly the way we want it.”

For example, the staff is working to build the school’s library, calling librarians and book company representatives around the country in hopes of making the facility a “real media center instead of just a library,” Cryster said.

Cryster said the school, at Circle Knoll Drive and Wood Ranch Parkway, waited until last week for its official grand opening because workers were still putting on the finishing touches.

“The last cement truck pulled away today,” said first-grade teacher Josephine Riske. “We were thrilled about that.”