More on the "Randall" name

There was Randall School renamed West Randall.  There was East Randall renamed Randall-Pepper. When Palmetto School opened in September 1958, the first name chosen but quickly discarded was "Randall-Palmetto"

More on DOUBLE SESSIONS:

More on Overcrowding and Double Sessions

West Randall had to open in 1947 with double sessions as did Redwood in 1950.  It wasn't until Randall-Pepper, North Tamarind, and South Tamarind opened in December 1951 that double sessions could be a thing of the past.

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In 1947, did employees and visitors get off the I-10 freeway and head north to Randall School?

No.  The road that stretched from Blythe to Fontana was Legislative  Route 26 (LR 26) 

                                 like its more famous neighbor to the north,  Legislative Route 66.                          LR 26 did not get extended to Los Angeles until 1956 when it officially became part of the 

Interstate System and renamed Interstate 10.                        

Side note: the new school didn't have a library, either.  More on that later in the blog.

Actual 1947 Blueprints

The contractor submitted plans for construction under the title "West Fontana School" before the name Randall School was selected.

Remember: the school didn't have a cafetorium or a library.

This was the entire school in 1947.  Office flanked by classroom on the left and Kindergarten on the right, one set of restrooms adjacent to the office, four other classrooms with another restroom closer to the playground.  There were two "covered activity" areas outside the two northernmost classrooms next to the P.E. field.

Notice the walkways were designated from the office to the other classrooms as well as areas south of each classroom designated "class yard".

More on Randall School's construction:  

          In 1947, not only did West Randall not have a cafetorium or a library, it also didn't have             SIDEWALKS for students to safely get to school on.  Like West Randall, Redwood School   

        opened in April 1950 sidewalks, too.                                                                                                 

          The City of Fontana didn't mandate that tract-home builders put in sidewalks near schools 

      until North Tamarind was built in 1951.                                                                                            

More on Randall's First Year:

California State Law mandated a 170-day school year and since Randall School did not open until September 29th, that meant that thirteen (13) school days had to be "made up".  Three days were in   session during the Yuletime holiday and ten more days were tacked-on to the end of the school year.  

An exhaustive search for a picture of Winnie T. Nightwine from multiple online sources failed to turn up any photos of her, even from her maiden name Terrell's family trees on Ancestry.com.

The author of this blog went to Montecito Memorial Park and shot Winnie Nightwine's headstone.

Many of the Fontana elementary schools hosted various local groups as a way of fostering community involvement by providing meeting places such as cafetoriums and playground fields

More on the Fontana Parks & Recreation "Cinder Belles" girls track team.

Read about this young Fontana star who was in the "under nine" group.

Notice the article says they practice DAILY at West Randall and that young Suzanne Keith made friends with the "greatest female track athlete of all time."

San Bernardino Sun Wednesday July 1, 1970

Remember the "Cinder Belles" track team in 1970 at West Randall?

In 1975, West Randall teacher Bob Bollinger used West Randall's facilities as the 

County Headquarters of a folk dance group which he started and taught.

The group from six Fontana schools was the "Tambolinas"

That's not all, folks.  In 1978, the Tambolinas went on a 10-day field trip to central California to perform at Oxnard, Solvang, San Jose, Merced, and Sacramento.  

Congratulations, Bob Bollinger!

Ancient, Ancient History at West Randall

The large, important articles above lead to a compilation of smaller articles down through the years.

Let's take a trip down Memory Lane from 1950 to 1980!

disclaimer: some of the articles are simply to show activity regarding West Randall.  

They were not meant to be totally readable

From a petty burglary to a very special article regarding patriotism and West Randall spirit...........

Fifth grade teacher Robert Bollinger had his class buy an American flag for a history project, ship it Washington D.C. to fly over the Capitol dome, then it was sent to Air Force Headquarters in 

Viet Nam, and finally came home on the aircraft carrier USS Enterprise CVA 65.

From a dramatic, uplifting, and inspiring entry about West Randall's American flag to the most tragic story of this history blog.

From July 1968, this is the story of two vandals who burned down the library (it was a portable) which lost the school not only the structure but also 945 state textbooks and nearly 

9,000 library books and two new sets of encyclopedias.

Synopsis

Two neighborhood boys, ages 14 and 11, found a crack in the door of the library and poked lit matches into it. 

The police gathered up spent matches outside the burned structure and drove around the nearby neighborhoods.  To their great astonishment, they spotted the exact same matches in the driveway at the home of one of the boys.  That led to one suspect which led to the other boy.

 A larger article mentioning the boys' names, addresses, and ages as well as the account of the detective work involved is not inserted into this blog.  Further searches never turned up whatever happened to the two boys. 
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Then, in October 29, 1980, between $7,000 and $10,000 worth of wind damage at the school was reported.  The Santa Ana winds blew the roofs off two classrooms, and 200 students had to be evacuated.

                                                    FINAL REPORT

The newspaper accounts featuring West Randall School on Newspapers.com dried up with a 

January 1992 report that West Randall was the first elementary school in the District to offer childcare for PTA meetings.  

            

About the Blogger

Bob Palmer spent 18 years at Redwood and 7 years at Oleander before retiring in 2017.  While still teaching, he taught himself how to create Google® blogs and made one for Oleander's 60th anniversary in 2015.  That blog can be viewed at olebears.blogspot.com

                          [when you search it with Google, you don't need the http or the www]

Without blogs, Mr. Palmer has created histories for Canyon Crest's 25th, Fontana Adult School's 60th anniversary, Palmetto's 60th, and Redwood's 70th, and he will be keeping busy with three schools which turn 70 in 2021: Randall-Pepper, North Tamarind, and South Tamarind.

In 2016, the school district celebrated the 60th anniversary of when Fontana Unified School District got its official start with its July 1, 1956 split from the Chaffey Union High School District.

Mr. Palmer's blog chronicling Fontana schools' history from the 1920's to 1956  

is at fusd60.blogspot.com.

Mr. Palmer was honored by the school board in May 2016 for his efforts in compiling 

FUSD's history.

  

Bob was cordially invited by principal Mrs. Stringer to West Randall's 70th anniversary celebration in 2017, but was unable to attend due to his wife's health problems.  He lost her to pancreatic cancer in January 2018.  

In addition to doing research for Fontana's schools, Mr. Palmer is involved with Riverside Toastmasters (47 years), a Roberts Rules of Order study club (president), an Orange County dulcimer club, a Riverside ukulele club, and the Riverside Folk Song Society.

He is "spoiler in chief" to 5 year old grandson, Max, in San Pedro.