In August 2019, there was hectic stuff going on at Anaheim’s Walt Disney School. Vehicles stopped at the nearby crosswalk when numerous parents came with kids for their first day at school. A parent posed for a photograph with his kids around the school marquee. It was a familiar event at this elementary school, which dates back to the active days of Walt Disney. As its namesake came in 1957, a holiday was declared for students, and they were invited to the around 2-year-old Disneyland Park in Anaheim.
The Magnolia School District faced a quandary in the year in which Disneyland opened its door to the public. With just two Magnolia schools, the District needed to develop sites to fulfil the demand from families who moved into Anaheim’s west side in a real estate boom period. Meanwhile, the local school board integrated white pupils to a Magnolia school, the institution for Mexicans, to ease pressure.
Then, the local school board tried to get new schools named after US men who contributed to the well-being of humanity with a motion. One school was named after polio vaccine creator Jonas Salk. The local board then voted to have the other school named after Walter Elias Disney if Disney approved the same. Disney approved it and recommended putting a painting of Disney’s fictional characters on the wall of the school’s multi-purpose room.
According to the LA Times, the launch of the two elementary schools named after Salk and Disney resulted in one of California’s biggest-ever transfers of students. In 1957, 1,700 pupils were moved into those two educational facilities.
In March 1957, Walt Disney participated in the ceremony that dedicated the public educational institution to him. It is still Orange County’s only public school named after Disney. Back then, he stated that it would not be a celebration if you could not visit Disneyland in Anaheim on a day where the school was conducted.
The real estate boom in Anaheim continued after the Walt Disney School’s opening. That summer, newspaper ads with the name of the school attracted potential residents to Anaheim communities. Disneyland aided in turning Anaheim into a boomtown, which inadvertently made the District indulge in school integration.