New School Opens in Long Beach

More than 850 elementary students and their teachers marched five blocks from a 10-year-old “temporary school” to the new home of International School on Monday morning.

Children moved their belongings into their new classrooms amid the music of Long Beach Polytechnic High School’s marching band and a speech from the principal. A formal dedication ceremony will be announced later this year.

The three-story, 36-classroom school is on land once used as a parking lot for Long Beach Unified School District administrators during the 1920s, said Richard Van Der Laan, spokesman for the school district.

Heavy El Nino rains delayed construction for six months, Van Der Laan said. As students moved in Monday, workers were still putting finishing touches on the campus. Water coolers were brought in because the water system is still being tested. And landscaping and concrete pathways are still unfinished.

The old International School site was once a Sears department store and was meant to house students for a short time, Van Der Laan said. As the area’s population boomed, classroom space became scarce and the makeshift school operated for a decade, Van Der Laan said.

The school, located in downtown Long Beach, is appropriately named because of its diversity: More than 40 languages are spoken by its students, Van Der Laan said.