Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo Elementary School invites the Point Loma community to come celebrate 100 years of providing quality education for Point Loma with an evening full of fun on Friday, Oct. 13, from 6 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. at Cabrillo Elementary, 3120 Talbot St. The celebration includes live performances by the students, a silent auction and the opening of a time capsule that was buried during the 85th anniversary celebration.
Students and parents will have an opportunity to see the 100 years of history of the school as they walk through the auditorium to look at photographs of the school from its inaugural years during the early 1900s. There will also be centennial t-shirts available to those who wish to help offset some of the cost of hosting the event. The proceeds from the event will go toward the goal of improving the school’s technological capabilities with wireless communications, according to centennial celebration committee member Carmen Barrett. Barrett has taught kindergarten at Cabrillo for the past five years, but has been teaching elementary school for 18 years. She said the buzz is beginning to build around the event.
“[The students] are very excited,” said Barrett. “They’re always asking, ‘Is the birthday party today?'”
Barrett’s kindergarten class has been spending the last few weeks preparing for their live performance, where they will sing “There Is a School So Wonderful” in front of the student body, parents and the community.
During the ceremony, each class will follow suit and perform for those who attend the celebration. The performances finish with the fourth grade singing a tribute to military heroes in honor of the men and women who serve in the military, said Barrett. After alumni and committee members are recognized, the opening of the time capsule will take place, followed by a performance by the Navy Colorguard, thus rounding off the celebration.
“Really, what we want to do is reach out to the community and say: If you are an alumni, come and reminisce with us.” Principal Flavia Soria said.
The celebration acts as a reminder of the important place Cabrillo Elementary holds in the hearts of Point Loma families, some of whom have been attending Cabrillo for generations, Soria said. Soria has been serving as principal at Cabrillo for three years and said it’s interesting to see children whose parents attended the school. The school has gone through many changes, and some teachers have been teaching there for more than 35 years. They have a real connection with Point Loma; they’ve really seen the changes over the years, Soria said.
Two such teachers have been recognized before for their time invested into the school. Antoinette Hille and Bernadette Verlasky are identical twin sisters who have been teaching at Cabrillo since 1974. During that time, burgeoning Point Loma attracted a huge fishing and military industry, and a significant portion of the population spoke Portuguese. Hille and Verlasky were hired as bilingual teachers to instruct the Portuguese-speaking population and can remember a time when at least a third of the school’s students spoke Portuguese, said Hille.
Hille and Verlasky have seen the school go through several changes and have also seen the education system evolve as it incorporates new technology. They remember when the school used blackboards and chalk, said Hille. Over the years, Cabrillo changed from using blackboards to erasable-marker whiteboards and now to overhead document projectors.
“We didn’t even have the Internet then; we had typewriters,” said Hille.
Cabrillo has always provided the best learning technology for their students, Hille said. Over the years, many changes have improved quality of teaching, but the technology gap still leaves Hille and Verlasky often surprised at the differences that can grow between generations.
“One time,” Hille said, “a student came into the office and didn’t know how to use the telephone. It was an old rotary phone, and they had never seen one before.”
Much other history has passed through the halls of Cabrillo over the last 100 years. The school has seen three name changes and the growth of a town that seems to develop faster than the little school can keep up. Cabrillo is a kindergarten through fourth grade school, with about 216 students and 11 teachers, along with support staff. The small size of the school has given it great advantages in educating its students. Smaller class size is the key to making education work well, Hille said.
“A positive thing is that every teacher knows the student, and that’s a real plus. I wish all schools could be like this because large schools can be overwhelming,” said Hille.
Cabrillo Elementary was named for Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo, the explorer and founder of Point Loma, who led one of the first European explorations into what is now San Diego Bay, according to the National Park Service. First known as Roseville Elementary in the early 1920s, the school was renamed Point Loma Elementary when it was a kindergarten through eighth grade school. In 1925, Point Loma High School was built, and the elementary school was renamed to Cabrillo Elementary to avoid confusion with the newly built high school.
Today Cabrillo continues its mission to “improve student achievement through effective teaching practices,” which it continues to build upon using up-to-date technological advances in teaching. The next step, according to Barrett, is to convert to wireless communications throughout the school.
Barrett, along with all the rest of the centennial Celebration Committee, invites all of Point Loma to come out and see a piece of history “” the school.
“We want to make this a super celebration of 100 years of learning, looking forward to another 100 years of excellent education in Point Loma,” said Barrett.