Thanksgiving Day first came on Oct. 24 for a generation of Conejo Adventist Elementary School supporters at the groundbreaking ceremony for the school’s new five-acre, K-8 campus. Principals, staff members and students of the elementary school and adjacent Newbury Park Adventist Academy joined with leaders from the Southern California Conference and the schools’ project committees to reflect with gratitude on the Lord’s leading.
Seated on hillside seats, grandparents reminisced about the days when planning for the school began in the early '80s as part of the 458-acre redevelopment of the Newbury Park Academy site. Four members of the original planning committee were among those donning hard hats and wielding shovels to officially kick off the construction. Repeatedly, leaders praised God for His hand that had worked through the years to ensure that His school would become a reality at last.
“The Lord has blessed our school. Our enrollment has increased by 100 students in the past five years, and we have a waiting list for our four academy dorms,” said NPAA Principal Harold Crook, Ed.D., who has served on the building committees from the start.
Choirs from CAES and NPAA underscored the joyful spiritual tone of the event, exemplifying what the occasion was really all about. “Christian education of Ventura County will always be of the highest quality,” Crook told the parents and grandparents in the audience, “not because of buildings, but because of the students you send to our school.”
Larry L. Caviness, president of Southern California Conference, affirmed, “This new school is also an investment in our young people.”
“We came and found that the parents here are the greatest in the world," CAES Principal Phil Hudema noted. "The staff is committed and just great. The program is excellent. This new building will just add to it. Please remember us in your prayers. We are just so excited!”
“We are very excited about having a facility that will be terrific for our kids," added Jeff Wolcott, chair of the elementary school's board. "We are going forward!”
Construction began within weeks after the groundbreaking. Plans are for students to be in the school for the 2007-2008 school year, beginning in September 2007.
