Lakeland Village School (Lake Elsinore, California)

Lakeland Village School is a publicly funded school in the Lake Elsinore Unified School District, in California. It was opened in 2006^[1] as the Lakeland Village Middle School with a student population of 900. It was built at a cost of $33 million.^[2] In June, 2010 the school board closed the nearby Butterfield Elementary School and moved its entire population of students and teachers 3 miles south to the Lakeland Village Middle School campus and renamed the school the Lakeland Village School. It combined the Butterfield student population with half of Lakeland Village Middle School’s existing 6th–8th grade student population and teachers making it the district’s first K–8 school. The remainder of the student population and teachers will be moved to other nearby middle school campuses. The school opens as a K–8 school in August 2010, with an approximate student population of 1200.

The school’s auditorium was renamed the Butterfield Performing Arts Center,^[3] in memory of Butterfield Elementary School’s fifteen year history as the home of Riverside County’s first visual and performing arts magnet school.

History

The school, originally called Lakeland Village Middle School, was opened on August 21, 2006 with a student population of about 900. The district's fifth middle school, the eight-building campus cost $33 million to build and includes a full-service gymnasium, a multipurpose room, a library and six classroom buildings.^[4] The former principal at David A. Brown Middle School, Billie DaVolt was named as the school's principal and served from the school's opening in 2006 until its redesignation as a K-8 school in the Spring of 2010. It was officially named a California Distinguished School for 2009.^[5] With an API gain of 111 points, Lakeland Village Middle School was the highest-improving middle school in the state for 2009.^[6]

In The fall of 2009 in an effort to save budget funds it was proposed to combine the nearby Butterfield Elementary School (K-5) with part of Lakeland Village's grades 6 - 8 population, by moving the entire Butterfield student population of 760 onto the campus of the middle school, thus creating a new K- 8 facility.^[7] Approximately half of the existing Lakeland Village Middle School student and staff population, about 450 students, would need to move to nearby underutilized middle schools. On February 11, 2010 the Lake Elsinore Unified School District Governing Board voted to close the Butterfield campus and proceed with the conversion of the Lakeland Village Middle School into a K-8th grade facility.^[8] This new school combination was renamed as the Lakeland Village School, and should open with a student population of between 1100 and 1200 students in August 2010. Rita Post was named as the new principal of the school^[9] since Principal Billie DaVolt was retiring at the end of the 2009/2010 school year.

A $1.5 million contract was awarded on May 13, 2010 with Erickson-Hall Construction to participate in the reconfiguration of the Lakeland Village K-8 School project.^[10] A contract was also awarded to lease seven refurbished portable classrooms for two years at $81,655.^[11]

Principals over the years

The historical record is as follows:

External links

• Official website

References