Los Cerritos Elementary School turns 100 years old on Friday, and the community is invited to join the centennial celebration on campus grounds.
The celebration was brought to attention by a classroom of precocious third graders, who did a project on the history of their school last year and discovered it would be turning 100 years old in 2025.
“Since then, we all wanted to celebrate,” said Los Cerritos Elementary School Principal Liseeth Ramos. “We’re hoping that on Friday, we get a great turnout […] so that we can just walk down memory lane and hear from one another.”
The centennial celebration will be the last opportunity the public has to explore the campus before it undergoes renovations next year, which will take place from June 2025 to August 2026. The renovations will include upgraded windows, central air conditioning in all the classrooms, and accessibility ramps, as well as updated white boards, cork boards, document cameras and projectors.
A century ago, the board of the former Cerritos School District and local resident Mrs. George H. Bixby bought two acres of land next to Los Cerritos Park and built a two-room schoolhouse of stucco and concrete, according to the book “Long Beach’s Los Cerritos” by local historian Geraldine Gnatz. In 1933, the Long Beach Earthquake destroyed most of the original schoolhouse, forcing teachers to hold classes in tents and bungalows until the current school was built.
Ramos has been principal at Los Cerritos Elementary for five years, and said during that time some of the biggest changes on campus have occurred in its garden, which is in the process of being revitalized. A local parent/architect helped develop a new layout for the garden, and the school is currently fundraising to complete it.
“At one point in time, our urban farmyard garden had chickens, and they had a chicken coop, and we did lessons with the chickens,” Ramos said. “Unfortunately, during COVID, kids learned that the life cycle is real, when raccoons, unfortunately, were able to burrow and feast on some of the chickens. We had to reconfigure and to think about how we can restructure our garden space so that we can avoid things from coming and eating the produce that is being grown in the garden.”
Long-time residents and former alumni may remember the campus would remain open to the public after-hours, with neighbors visiting the garden or using the playground. While a fence was constructed years ago for student safety, the local community remains a vital part of the student experience.
“The great thing is, our community is very much connected,” Ramos said. “[…] Even though we’re kind of a hidden gem, as I like to call our school, everyone still knows and is here for one another. When it comes to anything with our school, we have community members that come and say, ‘Hey, do you need any support? Is there anything we can do?'”
The centennial celebration will take place at Los Cerritos Elementary School, located at 515 W San Antonio Drive, on Friday, April 25 from 3 p.m. to 7 p.m. Visitors will be able to look through past yearbooks and memorabilia in the library, participate in activities in the garden, explore the campus and more.
