A 10-part series celebrating the people and milestones in and around Great Park Neighborhoods as the community celebrates its 10th anniversary.
Great Park Neighborhoods Schools Create a Foundation for Students’ Success
August 1, 2023
From a young age, Patrick Cui found himself glued to his smartphone to watch live launches of new Apple devices. As a fan of Apple founder Steve Jobs, he admired his ability to harness the power of technology to create solutions and solve problems.
It wasn’t until he began attending Portola High School during its inaugural year in 2016 within Great Park Neighborhoods that Cui realized he could create his own technology-based solutions for himself and other students.
“It was at Portola High where I fell in love with entrepreneurism and establishing a launching pad for an idea – and actually create it,” Cui said. “Teachers also taught me how to interact and be a good person. I saw them as role models who gave me a perspective on the world that I wouldn’t have had otherwise.”
To find his place and participate in building a culture at the new school, Cui was active in several campus clubs, film production and the basketball team. He noticed it wasn’t always easy to find information on clubs and activities on campus, and details were largely shared across multiple Instagram accounts or by word of mouth.
So, he rallied a few like-minded classmates to create Integral, an app that organizes everything from classroom schedules to campus or club events.
Free to download by students, the app helps school administrators deliver useful content on school activities within an all-encompassing “digital backpack” or bulletin board. Authorized school administrators also keep end-to-end control of updating the content and related features.
“[Portola High and the teachers and coaches] encouraged me to find my passion and make a difference in the world”
Cui first presented the concept to Principal John Pehrson during his junior year. Principal Pehrson liked it and adapted the app on campus. Portola High doesn’t have the traditional school bell to start classes, so the app created an alternative solution to remind students of their next class or school activity through notifications or an onscreen feature that counts down the minutes to the next event.
Today, nearly four years later, the app is now utilized by three school districts and has more than 20,000 user downloads. As its CEO, Cui aspires to grow that number while he attends UC Berkeley, where he is studying Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences with a minor in Public Policy.
Cui credits what he learned in and out of the classroom during high school as key to his success and takes pride in being a part of Portola High’s first graduating class in 2020.
“Portola High and the teachers and coaches played a big role in shaping who I am,” Cui said. “They encouraged me to find my passion and make a difference in the world – and helped me define what I want to do for the foreseeable future.”
Cheering on and giving back
Few students return to their high school campus for a fifth year – at least not willingly. But that’s exactly what happened with 2021 Portola High graduate Jaein Kim.
Having excelled both as a student and on the cheer team, Kim was weighing her options upon graduation and deciding whether she was ready to start right away at a four-year university.
When her cheer coach heard she might stay local and take general ed courses at a community college, she offered Kim an assistant coaching job with Portola High’s Junior Varsity cheer team given the current coach was leaving. Kim accepted the position and coached while she attended Irvine Valley College.
While the experience lasted only one year, Kim is forever grateful to the teachers, coaches, and counselors who empowered her to chart her own path during her time as a student and later as a coach.
“It was a full-circle moment for me, and I was very grateful to have had that experience,” Kim said. “The sheer passion that [the] teachers had made me realize that learning was supposed to be exciting and fun, and that makes such a big difference when you spend a lot of time in school Monday through Friday.”
Kim is now entering her junior year at The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, where she is currently majoring in Marketing and Finance with a minor in Photography.
Places with Purpose
Students like Cui and Kim are the inspiration behind the construction of four state-of-the-art campuses within Great Park Neighborhoods, which is celebrating its 10th anniversary in 2023.
As some of the newest schools within the highly-rated Irvine Unified School District, the four campuses create the best possible learning environment for students through flexible workspaces, an integrated curriculum, personalized instruction, and the latest technology.
Here’s a glimpse into the four schools within Great Park Neighborhoods – and how they equip students for success in their future studies, careers and life:
Solis Park K–8
Opened August 2022
Solis Park is the community’s third K–8 school with a campus spanning seven buildings and 103,000 flexible square feet where students are free to collaborate, discover and grow. That might mean testing out experiments in an innovation lab, identifying native butterflies in the arts and science courtyard, or perfecting their three-pointers in the full-court gymnasium — wherever the day leads, this interactive curriculum will leave a long and lasting impact. The campus is one of IUSD’s only schools with dedicated facilities for special education programs.
Cadence Park K–8
Opened August 2018
Cadence Park K-8 and its art deco design is filled with innovative, collaborative, and reflective spaces that promote both personal and communal learning, plus inspiring places like the media center’s ‘illumination room’ complete with floor-to-ceiling windows, a working garden and a full-size gymnasium.
Beacon Park K–8
Opened August 2016
Beacon Park School was designed to meet criteria developed by the Collaborative for High Performance Schools, which establishes guidelines for campuses that promote environmental stability, energy-efficiency and alignment with modern teaching methods. In keeping with this campus concept, the grounds include covered walkways between each of the buildings, a separate kindergarten area with play structures, outdoor learning areas between classroom buildings, student gardens, grass fields and grade level-appropriate play equipment.
Portola High School
Opened August 2016
Portola High School is IUSD’s fifth and newest comprehensive high school. The state-of-the-art school was designed to meet criteria developed by the Collaborative for High Performance Schools. That means there’s good lighting, clean air, and comfortable classrooms so that every student has the best possible learning environment with the smallest impact on the environment.
A joint venture of FivePoint funded the construction of the three K-8s as development partner of Irvine Unified School District (IUSD) and provided land for Portola High in partnership with IUSD and The Irvine Company.
For more information on the school amenities and leadership, visit:
Guide to Great Schools Brochure
Fun Fact: Serving a diverse population of more than 36,000 K-12 students, IUSD consistently ranks among the finest educational systems in the state and nation in subjects like Math, Science, English and Arts/Music. Its award-winning schools received the National Blue Ribbon Award 20 times since 1982 and were awarded the California Distinguished Schools/Gold Ribbon designation 83 times since 1986. In our book, they receive an A+ for educational excellence!
