Willow Glen Elementary History

The first Willow Glen School opened in November 1863. It was located at the northwest corner of Lincoln and Malone Road. (The name “Malone” was actually a misspelling. The road was named after a rancher from the area whose last name was Melone.)
Thirty-four years later, in 1897 and to accommodate a growing community, a larger school was built on the southwest corner of Lincoln and Minnesota and was named Willow Glen Elementary School.

A few years later a smaller building was constructed next to the 1897 building. The smaller building consisted of only four rooms. The two buildings stood side by side until the bigger one was torn down in 1924 to construct a still bigger school. The four-room wooden building was moved, but no record exists to show where it was moved. Meanwhile, bricks from the 1897 building were saved and used to make the sign for the present school.

The 1924 school was a two-story building with Spanish tile roofs. It remained in use until 1971 when still another new Willow Glen Elementary School building was constructed. To comply with the earthquake-proof requirements of the 1933 Field Act, the new building was made into a one-story building. The new building also reflected the time’s educational philosophy of open space classrooms. Thus, there were no inner walls in that building.

Today, Willow Glen Elementary School serves close to 600 students. To accommodate that number of students over the years, several portable buildings were added around the sides and back of the modern building. In the Fall of 2005 a transformation of the school began:  A new two-story building with 14 classrooms was constructed in the Spanish-style of the 1924 building (completion August 2007), the cafeteria/multi-purpose room was updated by relocating the food service area to the kitchen and addition of a stage; and a retrofit of the 1971 building was done to add classroom walls.  When this project is completed in the summer of 2008, many of the portable classrooms will have been removed and improvements made to the playground and turf areas.