New Beachside Elementary campus opens in Daytona Beach for former Osceola, Ortona students

With the start of the new year and a new semester, the Volusia County School District also celebrated the opening of a new school.

The consolidation of Osceola Elementary and Ortona Elementary culminated on Tuesday with the official opening of the Beachside Elementary campus in Daytona Beach, home of the Sea Turtles.

"The feeling was a really good one. We anticipated this as adults that the kids would be in awe, and they were," Principal Lynn Bruner said Tuesday afternoon. "(There was) lots of wow factor for the kids."

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Bruner, who had been Osceola's principal since 2018, said moving to the new campus was unique compared to the first day of school in that everyone knew each other, but didn't know the campus or where their classrooms were.

Some of the new campus features include bathrooms in every classroom, high ceilings and ergonomic and modern seating, including some chairs shaped like sea turtles and dolphins.

Superintendent, board members, staff welcome students to new campus

Superintendent Carmen Balgobin and school board members Anita Burnette and Ruben Colón also welcomed students to the new campus, which features horizontal stripes in shades of blue, orange and yellow, which Burnette likened to a sunset over a beach.

"It was very nice and refreshing to see happy, smiling faces (that were) excited to be at a new school,” she said in a phone interview Tuesday morning. “I think today was a good day. It was a good day for the community. It was a good day for Volusia County students, staff and schools, and I think that people are pleased, and there are still a few kinks to work out, but overall, it was a good first day.”

Burnette says staff members arrived early and were excited and helpful. She added it was nice that the school drop-off line streamlines students right into the cafeteria each morning.

New school merges former Osceola and Ortona communities

Consolidating the schools has been a topic of discussion in recent years, as community members differed on where to build the school. The board ultimately decided to build it at the Ortona Elementary campus in Daytona Beach and use the Osceola campus in Ormond Beach as a temporary school for both student populations during construction, which began in August 2021.

The Ormond Beach community had preferred rebuilding at Osceola instead, and tried to rally support with a petition of more than 600 signatures and a pledge of $2 million from Ormond Beach to update the campus.

The opening of the new school, located at 1265 N. Grandview Ave., represents the final stage of merging the two communities of 560 students, who have already been attending school together for the past year and a half. The process dates back to before Burnette joined the board in 2020 to represent District 2.

"I think that the school is going serve the community very well and it looks like everyone was very happy,” she said. “Everybody looks like they came together pretty well, and even those who would have preferred a different outcome, they seem to be very happy.”

Burnette says the old Osceola campus will serve as a relief campus for Ormond Beach’s Tomoka Elementary while it gets a full rebuild as well over the next few years.

Saying goodbye to Osceola and Ortona schools

Bruner said they were sad to leave the previous campuses and see Ortona demolished, but the Beachside community — whether originally from Ortona or Osceola — has united over the unique shared experience of leaving behind an old school and moving mid-year.

One teacher, for example, had been in the same classroom at Osceola for 30 years, and others had been students at the schools themselves.

Bruner also recognized "the amazing dedication of every single staff person and countless volunteers and business partners making it happen, along with the district."

Before winter break, Beachside Elementary posted on Facebook that its teachers participated in a memory walk of the Osceola campus, which “gave our staff the opportunity to share wonderful memories about the campus we are leaving and to talk about all the amazing experiences that we will create at the new Beachside campus.”

Contact Danielle Johnson at djohnson@gannett.com.

This article originally appeared on The Daytona Beach News-Journal: Beachside Elementary opens in Daytona Beach, merging Osceola, Ortona