Windrush Closing at End of School Year – Celebration of School History Planned

El Cerrito's Windrush School, and bruising legal battle, is closing at the end of the current school year, the school announced Friday.

The private, progressive education-oriented K-8 school, which celebrated its 35th anniversary in September, is now planning another, farewell celebration to honor and remember its past on April 21.

"With our rich history, progressive programming, outstanding academics, service learning outreach, and amazing community there is much to honor and much to celebrate," said a school statement provided to Patch by board member Troy Tyler.

The school would like to spread the word about the closure and the April 21 event to all those who have been connected to Windrush since it was established in 1976, Tyler said.

The closure is not a big surprise. Windrush had not shown signs of recruiting students for next year and has been focused on the struggle to make it through to the end of the current year. In the last week of February, it announced it was reducing staff, consolidating classes and trimming programs for the remainder of the current year. 

Suffering from a steep decline in enrollment and income, the school defaulted in June last year on debt payments for $13 million in bonds issued in 2007 to build a new middle school/library building and refurbish the gym. After months of U.S. Bankruptcy Court proceedings, Windrush reached an agreement with the bondholders, represented by Wells Fargo Bank, to turn the school property over to the bank at the end of the school year.

"We are calling all Windrush families, alumni, faculty, staff, and dragons to celebrate 35 magical years and more!" the school's announcement Friday said. "The over-sized backyard barbeque fun is from 1-5 p.m. and will include: food & drink, carnival games, arts & crafts, Chung Mei Home history, Windrush slideshow memories, photobooth pictures with free prints, dragon scavenger hunts, frisbee golf, live music and the entire extended community. There will also be guest performances, a time capsule presentation, and an opportunity to toast everything that has made Windrush a truly special place."

The school's adminstration and elementary school building, known for its distinctive Chinese-theme architecture, was originally the Chung Mei Home for Chinese Boys, established in 1935 and said to have been the only orphanage for Chinese boys in the United States.

Those interested in donating, volunteering or contributing in other ways to the April 21 celebration of the school and its history are asked to contact Rebecca Wralstad at rwralstad@windrush.org.

For more background on the Windrush financial collapse, you can see our past stories by clicking "Windrush School" next to Related Topics below this article. For alerts on future Windrush stories, click the "Keep me posted" button below the article. We've also posted a list of all Patch stories on the Windrush crisis at the top of our original article, "Crisis at Windrush School: Threat of Imminent Closure."