ROSEVILLE, Calif — Rex Fortune Elementary School will have its grand opening Wednesday in Roseville.
It's the Center Joint Unified School District's first elementary school in Roseville and it will be transitional kindergarten to sixth grade.
The school is named after the late superintendent of the school district, Dr. Rex Fortune, who died in 2023. His wife and family members will be at the ceremony, which lasts from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. There will be no school registration at the grand opening event.
The school has an emphasis on STEAM education, or science, technology, engineering, arts and math.
"The Rex Fortune Campus was designed specifically to be a STEAM-focused school. We have three dedicated labs all with large fold-up garage-door style doors to allow teachers to extend the learning space outside," Principal Jason Farrel wrote in an email to ABC10.
One of the labs will have 3D printers and will mainly be a space to work on projects and share ideas. The other two labs will be used for students to participate in programs such as Project Lead The Way and FOSS.
Farrel said the teachers are UC Davis C-STEM trained and will be using Roboblocky, a block coding program, and Linkbots for math instruction. He said it's the only school in Northern California to use this curriculum.
Each classroom will be outfitted with three television screens and six floor-to-ceiling whiteboards as well as mobile furniture.
The school has electric locks on all the rooms and eventually will have them on all the gates allowing the campus to do a full lockdown in 10 seconds or less, according to Farrel.
Schools in the Center Joint Unified School District start class Aug. 7, according to the 2023-2024 calendar. The school is located at 4601 Upland Drive.
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