SAN BERNARDINO – (INT) – A milestone was reached Monday when the last school in an 11-year expansion opened.

Teachers welcomed 650 students at the Paakuma’ K–8 School on the first day of classes for students in San Bernardino City Unified Schools.

Paakuma is the last school built as part of the San Bernardino City School District’s aggressive construction campaign that began in 2004. Fifteen new schools were built as part of that effort, adding about 15,000 new classroom seats.

Paakuma is the only San Bernardino school that serves students from kindergarten through eighth grade. It is also is one of the first in the District to incorporate the successful concepts of Advancement Via Individual Determination (AVID) at the elementary school level.

It also offers a full-day, dual language immersion kindergarten for parents who want their children to be bi-literate in English and Spanish.

Story Date: August 5, 2015