November 7th, 2023, will go down in history as one of the most impactful days in Tustin’s history, especially for the students at Legacy Magnet Academy. This day was an impactful change for the Tustin community when a military Hangar from the 1940s burnt down. The North and South Hangars played a crucial role in major U.S. Military operations from 1942 to 1992, including World War II (WWII), according to the City of Tustin. The hangars are the largest wooden structures in the world and were initially built in 1942 to store blimps used to patrol California’s coastline for Japanese submarines during WWII, according to CBS News. Firefighters attempted to put the fire out, but the sheer size of the building made the task dangerous, so a controlled burn was implemented until the roof burnt down. 

Students woke up on a normal Tuesday ready to go to school, until they heard the news about the hangar fire.  Little did they know in the next coming weeks, their day to day life would be uprooted to first,  remote learning and then eventually a new school site. 

Students were overwhelmed and scared, filled with a flurry of emotions. Hannah Nguyen, a 9th grader at Legacy Magnet Academy, says, “It was definitely different and a difficult change. But it was easy to adapt. With our generation already having experienced COVID, the change was somewhat easy.”  After almost a week of being online, students made the most of their time at home. Friends got together and created study groups which helped emotionally support students while navigating this period. 

As time went on, citizens of Tustin found out that more chemicals, such as asbestos, were released in the air. This being a shame, students of Legacy stayed online for two more weeks. During this period, Legacy students used the resilience and adaptability skills they developed during COVID which made the remote learning process much easier. Freshman Liv Kong says, “By the time that we received the information that we had to do online learning, it wasn’t “we have to start online learning” it felt like a “we have to go back to online learning.” COVID prepared us for so much and taught us how to show scholarly behavior even though we may not be on campus.” Chelsea Hedberg, another student further explains that, “We knew what sudden change felt like and how to adapt quickly which definitely helped us while being online again. Quarantine taught us how to keep ourselves motivated even when there was no clear end in sight. I can speak for many when I say that we still use the skills we learned in COVID.”

During the last days of remote instruction, both middle and high schoolers received the information that they would be moving to alternate campuses. Any student enrolled at Legacy Magnet Academy can say the change from LMA to ESC and Utt was nerve-wracking at first. Some might say that the first day of school jitters reappeared. The change from campus and culture was initially uncomfortable, but as time went on, people learned to embrace that ESC and Utt were different environments, and learned to accept it and look brighter. Sophie Shah, another Legacy Magnet Academy student, says, “Honestly, I enjoyed getting to experience a whole other campus. It was cool to have a change.” 

For LMA students, this journey taught us a lot, and we got an opportunity to reapply the skills we learned during the pandemic. Many people enjoyed the switch of campus and the smaller amount of students in one place. Going into the new school year, students are happy to return back to Legacy’s familiar campus, yet can still say they made these pivots within the first half of the school year while maintaining their academic integrity and continuing to show RISE.