Miraloma Elementary School
Miraloma Park historian Rosalie Kuwatch writes, “Very early the Miraloma Park Improvement Club was aware of the need for a school. At the March 19, 1936 meeting of the Club it was discussed. A committee was formed and its successful petition resulted in a school of temporary wooden buildings that opened in 1940. The children had to go outside to the bathrooms and evening programs had to be held outside. By the late 1940’s, the bungalows being heated with wood burning stoves, were considered shacks by the parents, and lacked room for the older children who were required to be driven to West Portal Elementary School. They conducted a house to house count of the number of existing and potential children in the neighborhood and petitioned the school district for construction of a permanent school. The Improvement Club and parents have always been in active support of the school. They organized parent groups to build playground equipment and parents helped to maintain it. Many fund raisng events held by the Club have had proceeds split with the school.” (Photos by Miraloma School parent Bertha Jones. See what is happening now at this thriving elementary school at http://www.miralomasf.com).
Halloween celebrations in 1946 and in 1947 on what is now Miraloma Playground.
Parents treated Miraloma School teachers to a special lunch in March 1949 at The Townhouse Restaurant (now Villa d’Este). Pictured here are Mrs. Long, Inman, Patton, and Rosenberg, as well as, Misses Goldstein, Green, and Learned.
First day for these first graders at the old Miraloma School in 1951 displaying their brand new Hopalong Cassidy lunch pails.
Sign announcing construction of a permanent Miraloma Elementary School by Monson Brothers (who also built the Mount Davidson Cross in 1934).
School groundbreaking ceremony on February 5, 1951. The newspaper photographer puts down his camera to give the student a demonstration on how to move the gears on the bulldozer.
Miraloma students and parents lined up to watch the groundbreaking ceremony despite the inclement weather.
Construction progress – April 1951. Postwar houses being built in back of the school now prominently feature two-car garage entrances right in front.
New Miraloma School site – May 1951.
Miraloma School looking nearer completion in August 1951.
In November of 1952 the new “Most Modern on the Pacific Coast … Million Dollar” school at 174 Omar Way was opened with 400 pupils in Kindergarten through grade six.
The new school featured an innovative arrangement of desks to maximize space.
Students had to go outside to clean up in the old school – each class room in the new school was “self-contained” with it’s own bathroom!
Miraloma School 6th Grade graduation class in 1956. Front row: Vicki Dodson, Nancy Jones, Chas. Hildebrand, Gary Moore; Back: Barbara Elle, Patty Wheeler, Annette Cattani, Linda Madsen, Judy Cordini, Andy Lea, Tommy Tolmack, Carolyn Bohn, Bruce Strange, Philip Safier.
Miraloma School 5th Grade Room 10 1958 (Courtesy David Holdener.)
