Tuesday, August 18, 2026

Pasadena Schools Open With ‘The Power of Us’

By EDDIE RIVERA

Students at John Muir High School were greeted Monday by “Rampage,” the Los Angeles Rams mascot, along with school officials and community leaders. [Eddie Rivera / Pasadena Now]

PUSD Superintendent Dr. Elizabeth Blanco spent the morning moving between two campuses, beginning at Washington Elementary STEM Magnet School shortly after 7:30, where students filed into classrooms already stocked for a new year of lessons. The visit doubled as a preview of facilities upgrades planned for the school in the years ahead.

In Ana Vasquez’s first-grade classroom at Washington, students were already making first-day introductions and sharing fun facts about themselves with their new classmates. 

By 8:45, Blanco had made her way to John Muir Early College Magnet High School, where the district’s annual welcome turned the walkway into something closer to a parade route. ‘Rampage,’ the LA Rams mascot, PUSD Board members, alumni and civic leaders lined the path into campus, cheering students through the gates in a tradition Principal Dr. Lawton Gray said has grown over the years.

Pasadena Unified School District Board Member Michelle Richardson Bailey and Pasadena Unified School District Superintendent Dr. Elizabeth Blanco. [Paul Takizawa / Pasadena Now]

“The mood is exciting,” Gray said. “The mood is getting ready to get down to business and we’re just so happy to have the community out here celebrating and supporting our students.”

Gray said the community built the welcome to send students off with momentum, and this year carries extra weight. John Muir turns 100.

Washington Elementary classroom. [Paul Takizawa / Pasadena Now]

“This is our hundred year anniversary, so it’s our Centennial this year,” Gray said. “We’re really excited about all these things that come forward this year at John Muir High School.”

Blanco acknowledged the district’s financial challenges over the past few years,  saying that  this year’s theme is meant to shift the district’s focus toward what it has rather than what it lacks.

John Muir High School Principal Dr. Lawton Gray and Pasadena Unified School District Board Member Patrice Marshall McKenzie. [Paul Takizawa / Pasadena Now]

“We don’t want to focus on challenges,” Blanco said. “We want to focus on the assets of the school district and what we can do for the classrooms. And I think it’s going to be a great year.”

She pointed to partnerships that have restored programs cut during past budget reductions, including support from the Pasadena Educational Foundation and a grant from Kaiser that will expand mental health resources on campuses.

Muir High student. [Paul Takizawa / Pasadena Now]

“It’s always hard to go through reductions in budget challenges,” Blanco said. “We reduced positions, but not so much people. I had a teacher call me so excited that she was just called back this week, and we were able to call back the majority of our staff. We reduced positions, not people.”

Students’ supporters. [Paul Takizawa / Pasadena Now] supporters

Outside the classrooms, the day looked the way it always does in Pasadena: backpacks, nervous kindergartners, a school mascot working a gate to grinning kids not quite awake yet. Beneath the ceremony, Blanco and Gray described a district trying to rebuild what recent years have chipped away, one grant, one partnership, one classroom at a time.

Classes continue across PUSD’s 23 campuses this week as the district settles into the 2026-2027 school year.