The decommissioning of the El Toro Marine base signaled the end for IUSD’s El Toro Marine Elementary School, but the old red-brick campus still holds a special place in the history of IUSD.
The school opened in 1962, primarily serving the sons and daughters of military families who bonded over stories of relocation and deployment. With enrollment dipping to double-digit figures in its final year, the school closed for good in June 1999.
More than a decade later, plans are underway to transform the publicly owned portion of the Marine Corps Air Station El Toro into the Orange County Great Park, billed as the first great metropolitan park of the 21st century.
Do you have an old photo of the Irvine Unified School District you’d like to share? Send it to ianhanigan@iusd.org, along with some basic caption information, including names, dates and locations. We may publish it on the NewsFlash as part of our IUSD at 40 project, which will feature an image from IUSD's first four decades every Thursday.