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The La Jolla Country Day School girls basketball team left little doubt about who’s the best in their sport in San Diego as the Torreys raced past Del Norte 86-27 on Feb. 25 to win the CIF San Diego Section Open Division championship at Cathedral Catholic High.

The title is the second in a row for the Torreys and their third in four years.

The girls basketball victory capped a weekend championship trifecta for Country Day a day after the boys basketball team won the Division I title and the boys soccer team won Division IV.

The Torreys girls (29-3), seeded No. 1 in San Diego and ranked No. 5 in the nation by MaxPreps, jumped out to a 20-2 lead, led 29-8 at the end of the first quarter and 54-14 at halftime, with point guard Jada Williams hitting a half-court buzzer beater.

“Some games we start slow,” Williams said. “Today, the plan was to jump on them early. Play hard.

“This is an amazing finish. Back-to-back titles is amazing.”

Williams finished the game with 19 points — all in the first half as Torreys coach Terri Bamford played everyone on the roster early in the game.

Country Day had 10 players score, led by Williams and center Breya Cunningham, who also had 19 points.

Cunningham also had seven rebounds and started the fourth quarter with a three-point basket.

“Making a three-pointer has been my goal all season,” Cunningham said. “So it feels great.”

Tajianna Roberts added 13 for the Torreys while Safiya Sugapong had nine points and Sumayah Sugapong added eight.

“I’m glad so many girls got a chance to score,” Williams said. “Our backups work so hard in practice. We’re not as good a team without them. You can’t just have five players and be successful.”

Williams and Cunningham are seniors and will play next season at Arizona. They also have been named to play in the McDonald’s All-American girls basketball game in March and to represent the United States in the inaugural Women’s Nike Hoop Summit in April.

Junior Bailey Barnhard led seventh-seeded Del Norte (20-10) with 19 points.

“It was a blessing to be on the court with girls who are going to play at a Power 5 school,” Barnhard said, referring to the five biggest and most competitive college athletic conferences. “Despite the score, it was fun, an opportunity to play a great team.”

All eight teams that played in the San Diego Open Division will advance to the CIF Southern California Regionals. The regional brackets will be announced Sunday, Feb. 26.

— La Jolla Light staff contributed to this report. ◆

BOYS’ SOCCER

SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA REGIONAL

DIVISION I

Quarterfinals, Tuesday, 5 p.m. unless noted

#8 Bakersfield Ridgeview at #1 JSerra

#5 Sunny Hills at #4 Encinitas San Dieguito

#6 Montclair at #3 Birmingham

#7 Citrus Hill at #2 San Diego St. Augustine, 3 p.m.

DIVISION II

Quarterfinals, Tuesday, 5 p.m.

#8 Santa Monica at #1 Escondido San Pasqual

#5 Agoura at #4 Santa Maria

#6 El Camino Real at #3 Long Beach Poly

#7 Poway at #2 San Clemente

DIVISION III

Quarterfinals, Tuesday, 5 p.m. unless noted

#8 Sun Valley Poly at #1 Quartz Hill

#5 Newport Harbor at #4 San Diego Point Loma

#6 Santa Maria Pioneer Valley vs. #3 El Dorado at Placentia Valencia

#7 Palisades at #2 Los Alamitos, 4:30 p.m.

DIVISION IV

Quarterfinals, Tuesday, 5 p.m.

#8 La Jolla Country Day at #1 Orange Lutheran

#5 La Jolla Bishop’s at #4 Palm Desert

#6 Animo Leadership at #3 Carlsbad La Costa Canyon

#7 Eagle Rock at #2 Littlerock

DIVISION V

Quarterfinals, Tuesday, 5 p.m.

#8 at #1 (seedings tba)

#5 St. Genevieve at #4 Reseda

#6 Oxford Academy at #3 Lompoc

#7 at #2 (seedings tba)

= = =

Seeding dependent on Southern Section Division 6 final on Monday – the San Gorgonio-Victor Valley winner will be seeded first and be placed in the top half of the bracket, and the loser will be seeded second and enter the bottom half of the bracket.

#7/8 La Jolla Preuss at #1/2 San Gorgonio

#7/8 Roybal at #1/2 Victor Valley

NOTES: Semifinals, Thursday, 5 p.m. Championships, Saturday, 5 p.m.

GIRLS’ SOCCER

SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA REGIONAL

DIVISION I

Quarterfinals, Tuesday, 5 p.m. unless noted

#8 Bakersfield Liberty vs. #1 Santa Margarita at Saddleback College

#5 Carlsbad La Costa Canyon at #4 Villa Park

#6 San Diego Cathedral at #3 Los Alamitos, 7 p.m.

#7 Oaks Christian at #2 San Diego Westview

DIVISION II

Quarterfinals, Tuesday, 5 p.m.

#8 El Camino Real at #1 Hart

#5 Etiwanda at #4 Santee West Hills

#6 Santa Maria St. Joseph at #3 Harvard-Westlake

#7 Westlake at #2 San Diego County San Marcos

DIVISION III

Quarterfinals, Tuesday, 5 p.m. unless noted

#8 Western Christian at #1 Moorpark

#5 Bishop Amat at #4 Cleveland

#6 Bakersfield Centennial at #3 Marina, 3 p.m.

#7 Portola at #2 San Diego Henry

DIVISION IV

Quarterfinals, Tuesday, 5 p.m.

#8 Girls Leadership at #1 El Rancho

#5 Hemet at #4 Spring Valley Monte Vista

#6 South Gate at #3 Crean Lutheran

#7 Lompoc at #2 Granada Hills

DIVISION V

Quarterfinals, Tuesday, 5 p.m.

#8 Alliance Marine at #1 Ramona

#5 Magnolia at #4 San Diego Clairemont

#3 Larchmont vs. #6 Westminster La Quinta at Bolsa Grande

#7 San Diego Madison at #2 Carter

NOTES: Semifinals, Thursday, 5 p.m. Championships, Saturday, 5 p.m.

Though much has changed since Gillispie School was founded, its home-away-from-home philosophy has remained the same. This year, the La Jolla private school will celebrate 70 years of educating area children — and 90 years of serving them — with a gala on Saturday, March 11.

Gillispie School began in 1933 as a cottage that served hot meals to the children of single mothers or working parents in La Jolla during the lean years of the Depression.

“Its founders — pediatrician Samuel Gillispie and his wife, registered nurse Ada — had the prescience to offer the children in their care early-childhood learning and opportunities long before nursery school was the norm,” according to the school.

“We basically had five children who were living here,” said current Head of School Alison Fleming. “They were wards of the state, and there was a time in which Gillispie brought in children whose families were either having financial difficulty or there was a separation from the mother and father.”

At the time, the school was known as The Cottage. “It is our ambition to have The Cottage develop into a real home for every child who lives there,” according to a handbook from that era.

In 1953, with support from the La Jolla Kiwanis Club and others in the community, Gillispie broke ground on its current site at 7380 Girard Ave. in The Village and became a formal school. Early development was supported by proceeds from a thrift store the school owned further up Girard Avenue.

“Those funds were critically important to the operations of the school,” Fleming said. Eventually, enough was raised to buy the property on which the school sits.

The school expanded in the 1980s, 2010s and as recently as 2021.

“It went from about 1 acre to now about 2.3 acres,” Fleming said. That includes outdoor spaces so children can learn from the land.

The most recent 17,000-square-foot expansion, called “The Sandbox,” includes a new 7,000-square-foot building just north of the main campus. It houses a multipurpose room intended to function largely as the school’s first dedicated theater space, along with a music room, a kitchen, a science and design center and more.

The rest of the project includes adjacent outdoor spaces that contain lunch tables and a maker deck, along with a parking lot.

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Through it all, the school’s early message of being like a home has stayed consistent.

When the curriculum was expanded in the 1990s, then-Head of School Moreen Fielden wrote, “The Gillispie School offers developmentally appropriate instruction to children from toddlers through sixth grade in a nurturing home-away-from-home environment.”

“I think it is just so interesting because it’s still so prevalent,” Fleming said. “It’s really a home away from home for the entire family in many instances.”

For a time, the parent community included Fleming, whose children went to Gillispie before she joined the board and later became head of school.

From an education standpoint, she said, “students are encouraged to take risks, learn through experimentation, communicate effectively and make decisions. We want to foster the joy of discovery, and I don’t think that has ever changed.”

The students also are encouraged to be volunteers and participate in projects to try to make the world a better place.

For example, Gillispie School has been hosting blood drives since 2010. In 2015, a group of third-grade students created a video encouraging people to donate and/or buy treats, with proceeds going to the San Diego Blood Bank. The class raised $2,326.

Every year, students also have a classwide “Big Project” surrounding a theme. In 2018, the kindergarten class was inspired by an image of a sea turtle caught in a net with a plastic straw stuck in its nose and banded together to reduce the use of single-use plastic straws on campus. The school stopped offering single-use straws and the students asked their schoolmates to switch to biodegradable straws or reusable metal or plastic ones.

The school also participates in food-packing projects to create meal boxes and recycles lightly used uniforms.

“It’s a mission, but also more than a mission,” Fleming said. “It’s something that has to do with how you want the world to be. That’s the thing about education. There’s something about it that is futuristic, and I think that is important to really help children to be these ethical human beings who will problem-solve in ways that will better the world.

“Ada and Sam Gillispie got it. They saw right away that they’re the children who needed to be taken care of. That’s the legacy.”

Today, the school has about 60 teachers and staff members who serve 300 students. Tuition starts at $15,200 for toddler programs and goes to $27,550 for sixth grade. The school offers financial assistance to those who need it.

“It’s something that has to do with how you want the world to be. That’s the thing about education. There’s something about it that is futuristic.”

— Gillispie Head of School Alison Fleming

Fleming said the school is looking to expand its endowment program that started in 2009 in an effort to secure and retain the best teachers. At the time, according to the school, an anonymous donor family seeded the endowment with a $1.5 million gift and offered a challenge grant to match gifts and pledges from the community for an additional $1.5 million. In 2011, the Endowment for Excellence in Teaching was established with a total of $4.5 million.

For the immediate future, however, Fleming said she is looking forward to celebrating the school’s 70th anniversary with the March 11 gala, themed “California Dreamin.’” It will be held at the Pendry San Diego hotel.

To learn more about the school and the gala, visit gillispie.org. ◆

The California Supreme Court struck down the San Diego Unified School District’s student COVID-19 vaccination mandate and affirmed an appeals court ruling that school districts cannot create their own vaccine mandates.

On Feb. 22, the state‘s highest court rejected a challenge to the lower court’s November ruling in favor of Let Them Choose, an initiative of the anti-mask-mandate group Let Them Breathe.

The group first sued San Diego Unified in October 2021 over the district’s plans to require the original COVID-19 vaccination for students 16 and older to attend school in person and participate in extracurricular activities.

Let Them Choose argued that the district lacks the legal authority to impose its own vaccination mandates, saying that is something only the state can do. Judges at the Superior Court, appeals and now state Supreme Court levels agreed.

Let Them Breathe founder Sharon McKeeman said she was happy but not surprised that the ruling against San Diego Unified was upheld.

“This is the final finish line that we’ve crossed in protecting the rights of millions of California students against any unlawful COVID-19 vaccine mandates,” McKeeman said. “We were able to keep San Diego Unified students in school, and now we’ve set precedent statewide, just making it clear that other school districts cannot exclude students that don’t have the COVID-19 vaccine, or put forward their own mandates.”

District officials did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

San Diego Unified was one of a few school districts to try in 2021 to enforce its own student vaccination mandate, in addition to Los Angeles Unified and Oakland Unified.

Efforts to require the COVID-19 vaccine for in-person school attendance at a district or state level have since been dropped amid legal challenges and waning enthusiasm for COVID mitigation measures.

The San Diego Unified school board approved a student vaccine mandate in September 2021. The district has argued that it has the authority to require vaccination because it has a duty to keep students safe and healthy. It also contended the mandate was not really a mandate because it let unvaccinated students attend school virtually. The mandate allowed exemptions for medical reasons but not personal beliefs.

The district was never able to fully enforce the mandate due to Let Them Choose’s legal challenge, subsequent timing issues and then the news that the initial COVID vaccines were no longer as effective against newer variants. The mandate did not require additional boosters.

Earlier this month, state officials said they were giving up on their plans to implement a statewide student COVID-19 vaccination mandate. ◆

New buildings, math curriculum concerns, a growing athletic program and a temporary principal were among the primary topics discussed at the La Jolla Cluster Association’s meeting Feb. 23.

The Cluster Association is an organization of parents, teachers and principals from the five public schools in La Jolla that are part of the San Diego Unified School District.

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New address for La Jolla Elementary School

A new two-story building at La Jolla Elementary School, part of a $48 million site modernization that began in January 2021, is complete, and the school offices moved into the new space over the Presidents Day weekend.

As a result, the school’s address has changed from 1111 Marine St. to 7337 Girard Ave.

Principal Stephanie Hasselbrink said the fourth- and fifth-grade classrooms will move into the new building in late March.

“Our whole-site modernization project is touching every part of our campus, either completely gutting or renovating ... or rebuilding,” she said.

The entire project, which eventually will include a new kindergarten building, a lunch structure and an upper-field restroom, is expected to be finished in 2024.

“It’s just been really exciting,” Hasselbrink said.

Math curriculum concerns

Parents’ concerns about the district’s new math curriculum persist, nearly a year after a cluster subcommittee worked through its frustrations with the district.

Much of the concern about the initiative, called San Diego Enhanced Mathematics, has focused on access to particular class pathways and how students are placed in accelerated courses.

Subcommittee member Eren Efe, a cluster parent, said parents were notified this year of new changes, namely that the district might implement the Illustrative Mathematics curriculum.

Efe said she reviewed curriculum resources and determined that Illustrative Mathematics is “weak” compared with the rigor of the current curriculum. She said that could lead to advanced students learning under their potential.

Efe said parents she spoke with would like to continue with the current math curriculum, and she implored district officials at the cluster meeting to “consider giving [flexibility] to the clusters to use the materials that may be [a] better fit for the students in those schools.”

Merino said the district’s curriculum committee has not yet recommended a curriculum to the school board, and she advised Efe and other parents to wait until the recommendation is made.

Any new curriculum adopted would go into effect next school year.

Merino said there might be a “waiver process” for schools to use a different curriculum, but the entire “school team would have to support the decision,” with parent support as well.

Merino said she didn’t know whether schools would have to fund curriculum resources under such a waiver.

Cody Petterson, the new San Diego Unified board member for District C, which includes La Jolla, said “the board is very much committed to closing the achievement gap from the bottom up, not reducing achievement at the top to close the achievement gap.”

Middle school athletics

The district’s middle school athletics program, in its second year, has proved popular at La Jolla’s Muirlands Middle School. The program offers sports such as soccer, volleyball, basketball and flag football.

Cluster Association Chairwoman Megan DeMott said “we’re very happy that the school district has rolled out this amazing middle school athletics program.”

Its popularity, however, has led to issues with field space. La Jolla High School Principal Chuck Podhorsky said his school runs 28 sports and that teams are often sharing field space at Muirlands for practice.

DeMott said having lights at Muirlands might alleviate the problem, as practices for middle and high school students could be scheduled after dark.

San Diego Unified Area 5 Superintendent Mitzi Merino said installing permanent lights would be costly and take too much time.

DeMott asked whether the district might approve rolling lights.

Merino said any lights, permanent or rolling, would need to have support from surrounding neighbors. She said she is working on a solution with district officials.

Other Cluster Association members suggested looking at other fields, such as at nearby La Jolla Elementary.

Muirlands Principal Jeff Luna said he is open to all ideas but prefers to keep the middle school students at Muirlands.

He said he is working with Podhorsky and LJHS athletic directors to try to solve the issue.

Acting principal at Bird Rock

Bird Rock Elementary School Principal Andi Frost has been on personal leave since January and will be gone for an undetermined time.

Jamie Jorgensen, who retired in June as principal of Hearst Elementary School in Del Cerro, is the acting principal at Bird Rock.

The school is “such a fun place to be,” Jorgensen said. “The kids are so smart. The teachers are so smart. They all work so hard. The office staff is great.”

Next school year

Merino said district teachers and administrators are beginning to develop school site plans for the upcoming school year.

“One of the things we think is really important for us to consider … [is] setting goals this year for students who are farther from justice, making sure we’re really thinking about the students who we haven’t yet served in our school,” she said.

Next meeting: The La Jolla Cluster Association next meets at 4:15 p.m. Thursday, April 20, in the Muirlands Middle School library, 1056 Nautilus St. To learn more, visit lajollacluster.com. ◆