Students and faculty at King-Chavez Primary Academy and Arts & Athletics Academy in San Diego’s Logan Heights community will start the 2021-2022 school year in a brand-new, state-of-the-art building that the principal says reflects the very mission of the school.
“Our namesakes Cesar Chavez and MLK would be proud of this work,” King-Chavez principal Shelley Baca told NBC 7 during a tour of the building over the weekend. “We are all about education and equity. And when our students make it on campus, they’re going to feel it when they walk into this beautiful new building.”
The school’s new, blue-colored, 2-story building features 22 classrooms – from kindergarten to 5th grade – spread across two floors. The hallways are painted with school spirit, with the King-Chavez mascot and the words: “Home of the Lion Cubs” written in both English and Spanish.
Get San Diego local news, weather forecasts, sports and lifestyle stories to your inbox. Sign up for NBC San Diego newsletters.
The school said the new building will serve 570 students daily. The bright, open-concept feel is designed to “inspire collaboration and creative thinking.”
To that end, the classrooms are divided with glass walls to create a “sense of openness and community,” the school said.
The schoolyard on the century-old campus has also been redesigned. When students and faculty walk onto campus for the first day of school on Tuesday, they will find a new play structure, green spaces and an artificial turf soccer field.
Local
The school is calling its campus the “New Blue School.”
The first day of school on Aug. 17 will mark the first time students have returned to the campus for in-person learning since the pandemic began in March 2020. King-Chavez Neighborhood of Schools offered distance learning for its 2020-2021 school year amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
