Eastwood Elementary opens as Irvine students go back to school

IRVINE — The brand new Eastwood Elementary School opened its doors Thursday, Aug. 24, to welcome 420 students from the still developing Eastwood Village community.

“New schools always have a bunch of excited and dedicated teachers, and the facilities here are awesome,” said Jeff Oliva, whose daughter, Beilen, started first grade. “How can you go wrong with Irvine school?”

Beilen was among Irvine Unified School District’s more than 33,000 students who started their new school year Aug. 24. Eastwood is the district’s 23rd elementary school, built to accommodate Irvine’s growing population.

Irvine Unified opened Cypress Village Elementary three years ago, Portola Springs Elementary two year ago and K-8 Beacon Park School and Portola High School last year.

The $21 million Eastwood campus features student collaboration spaces across all grade levels, dedicated music classrooms, innovation and design labs, a dedicated kindergarten play area, outdoor play field and hard court activities including handball and tetherball equipment. It can accommodate up to about 1,000 K-6 students.

The school is designed to meet criteria developed by the Collaborative for High Performance Schools, which helps establish campuses that are healthy, comfortable, energy efficient and aligned with modern teaching and learning, according to the district.

The school is adjacent to Eastwood Village Park, the city’s newest neighborhood park that also opened to the public Thursday.

The Eastwood Village community opened last year, north of Irvine Boulevard at Jeffrey Road. The city approved up to 1,900 single family homes and condominiums, with no apartments, at the development.

Eastwood second grader William Pham woke his mother up at 5 a.m. Thursday.

“I’m excited that it’s going to be really fun,” Pham said.

Staff photographer Nick Agro contributed to this report.