Cross Elementary hosts ribbon-cutting
IMPERIAL – Hundreds of giddy children and equally awe-struck parents gathered Wednesday at Cross Elementary School for a ribboncutting ceremony that also doubled as an open house for the campus community.
During the ceremony, district Superintendent Bryan Thomason kept his remarks to a minimum so that the students, parents and staff could familiarize themselves with one another and the new campus.
Before allowing the large crowd to disperse, Thomason thanked the numerous stakeholders and community members in attendance for their support and contribution toward the campus’ creation and the district’s successes.
“The quality of our community is extremely connected to the quality of our schools,” he said. “Tonight we are excited to take another step toward our tradition of excellence in our Imperial Unified School District.”
It wasn’t that long after the Imperial Unified School District completed construction of Frank Wright Middle School in 2007 that it considered constructing a new elementary.
The end result of its initiative was a campus consisting of seven buildings whose 34 classrooms total about 68,000 square feet and will house about 515 transitional kindergarten through fifth-grade students.
The newly constructed campus represents the third new school to open its doors within the district in the past 19 years, starting with T.L. Waggoner Elementary in 2000, and Frank Wright in 2007.
“This is truly a remarkable feat in today’s construction environment,” Thomason said.
Its $34 million construction was made possible by voter-approved Measure O funds, and largely prompted by the city having doubled its population over the last 10 years, he said.
The campus will also help alleviate the impacted elementary campuses of Ben Hulse and T.L. Waggoner, whose student bodies will drop from about 1,000 to 800, and 900 to 600, respectively.
As a result, both campuses now have a little bit of room for growth.
“We have room to grow here at Cross as well,” Thomason said, adding that it has the capacity to accommodate 750 students.
Thomason was the fourth of the district’s superintendents to preside over the elementary campus-building initiative. During that time span, 10 different district board members also lent their support for the project.
Though IUSD Board Trustee Abdul Mohamed has only been on the board since 2008, he was a vocational agriculture instructor at the high school for 32 years until his retirement in 2005.
During that time he has had gained great satisfaction from not only watching the growth of the district’s footprint, but that of its academic standing as well.
“I’ve seen all the new schools get built and occupied so it was nice to see everything happen,” Mohamed said.
About half of the contractors employed on the project hailed from the Valley, while the rest came from the San Diego region, officials said.
The school’s construction was undertaken by Escondido-based Erickson Hall Construction Co., which has had an office in Imperial for the past 11 years as well.
The company has been responsible for the construction of many public facilities and schools in the Valley through the years, most recently the Corfman School gymnasium, Heber Junior High and Dogwood Elementary, said project engineer Erika Aponte.
“We actually have quite a presence here in the Valley,” Aponte said. “We’re very vested in Imperial Valley and bringing forth projects that benefit the community.”
As a parent, Aponte said she also understands the significance of constructing school campuses.
“This way we are part of something that gets to provide for not only for this generation but for future generations to come,” she said. “That part of it is really cool.”