Huntington Beach, Fountain Valley welcome thousands of students to new school year
Ocean View High School teacher Erica Quintero began her 17th year at the school on Wednesday.
Quintero could be seen in her classroom in the moments before school began at 8:30 a.m., directing some members of the Seahawk Connection Crew student group that she leads.
For the record:
10:55 a.m. Aug. 29, 2024This story has been corrected to note that Jadyn Grunbaum is now principal at Harbour View Elementary School.
The club of about 55 members helps connect upperclassmen and incoming freshmen and transfer students at Ocean View. Most of the club members had their SCC T-shirts on Wednesday, helping direct the flow of traffic and answering questions.
Students and teachers alike can have first-day jitters. Even an experienced teacher like Quintero can relate to that feeling.
“It’s a new group of students and you don’t know what to expect,” she said. “But it’s great. Every year is exciting. I would say that if I didn’t feel the first-year jitters, do I care about what I’m doing? I obviously do, so yeah, it’s exciting.”
Ocean View was one of six comprehensive high schools in the Huntington Beach Union High School District to welcome students back to the first day of school on Wednesday, joining Huntington Beach, Edison, Marina, Fountain Valley and Westminster. About 14,000 students total returned to class.
The Ocean View School District and Fountain Valley School District also opened their doors on Wednesday.
Ocean View High Principal Rob Rasmussen said his campus seeks to reflect the school’s slogan, “You can’t spell love without OV.” As the smallest of the six high schools in the district — the Seahawks have about 1,200 students — he believes it helps staff get to know students on a more personal level.
“It’s all about relationships when you talk about a culture of love,” he said. “I don’t remember a lot of the classes that I took in high school. I don’t remember the individual assignments, the homework, the tests. I remember the way that my teachers treated me. My message to staff as I welcomed them back these last two days is not to forget that, not to forget the power of relationship and knowing your student.”
Rasmussen said the campus has some exciting changes for this school year. The only International Baccalaureate school in the district, Ocean View went through an application process last year through the Department of Homeland Security to become an international school.
Now, Ocean View is welcoming four IB exchange students this year — two from Switzerland, one from Norway and one from Vietnam — as part of a pilot program.
He added that the school will be unveiling its new student wellness center, dubbed the Well Nest, with a new mental health specialist to allow for emotional support.
Rasmussen, hired as principal in 2021, is entering his fourth full year in that role. That means he’s seen the class of 2025 progress all the way through high school.
“Every graduating class is special to me,” he said. “Being able to watch them grow and mature throughout those high school years is one of the reasons I became a teacher.”
Ocean View School District celebrates return to Mesa View
The Ocean View School District welcomed about 6,675 students back on its 10 elementary school and three middle school campuses on Wednesday.
Green was the color of the day at Mesa View Middle School, which featured a ribbon-cutting reopening ceremony following its modernization.
The Eagles’ campus was the last in the district be renovated via the $169 million Measure R bond passed by voters in 2016.
The improvements were many on campus, OVSD Board of Trustees Vice President Patricia Singer said, including a new parking lot and a white and bronze color scheme. Three arches welcome people on campus at the front gates.
“I think this brings the spirit of the community together,” Singer said. “It fits into the neighborhood, it has that Spanish feel to it. But more importantly, it has hallways, which this school never featured before. The kids really have a beautiful space to work with and really be creative and reimagine their learning experience.”
She said her favorite feature is an industrial room where the students will be able to build and create. The district kept some of the original beams in that building, to tie into the history of the campus.
Isis Ortiz, who was principal at the consolidated Spring View Middle School, now assumes the same role at Mesa View. Former Mesa View principal Jadyn Grumbaum now leads at Harbour View.
“The buzz, the energy, it’s amazing,” Ortiz said. “The kids are really excited. Our eighth-graders saw the old campus, but our sixth- and seventh-graders have never seen this campus. It’s all brand new to them.”
David Rapchun, who attended Mesa View from 1972 to 1981, when it was a kindergarten through eighth-grade school, also attended Wednesday’s ceremony.
Rapchun is now a retired cosmologist who worked for NASA.
“I’ve been watching them do this reconstruction, and I really like what’s happened,” he said. “It’s very beautiful now.”
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