Eugene School District 4J

The Japanese culture has a long tradition of honoring a school building with a formal nameplate, or 校銘板 (koumeiban), signifying the building’s identity and permanence as a place of learning.

In that tradition, Yujin Gakuen — the nation’s oldest Japanese immersion elementary program — received its own measure of permanence three weeks into the new year. More than 30 current and former parents and school staff members gathered for the Jan. 23 ribbon-cutting of its beloved nameplate reinstalled at the former Willard school site at West 29th Avenue and Lincoln Street. YG moved there 16 months ago, its third location in four years.

Standing beside the sign, Superintendent Miriam Mickelson told the group its return symbolized the district’s public declaration that YG’s latest home is its permanent one.

“You have been in this building for a year,” Superintendent Miriam Mickelson told the group as she stood beside the sign. “But today we make it official to every person who passes by: this is the home of Yujin Gakuen.”

YG’s longtime home – the former Silver Lea school building where the nameplate created by Mary Ishizaki was first installed – was demolished in late 2020 to make way for the new North Eugene High School. YG then co-located with Kelly Middle School before moving to the Willard school site in south Eugene ahead of the 2024-25 school year.

The sign was salvaged and had been kept in a longtime school volunteer's garage for the last five years. There, Ishizaki restored the sign to its wooden luster to return it to public visibility after five years in storage. As the sign was being restored, the district's facilities department built a new seven-foot-tall sign structure. Workers took photos of the old structure so they could draft plans and, when the time was right, rebuild the structure to the predecessor's exact specifications (see photo for comparison).

The ribbon-cutting also provided a measure of permanence for the old Wiliard elementary site, which had been the home of several charter and alternative schools after budget cuts closed the neighborhood school there in 1999 after 44 years of operation. (The original Willard school building opened in 1916 and operated at 13th St. and Olive St. before it was heavily damaged in a fire in 1954.)

The Willard site then took on a new function after Village School moved out before the start of the 2016-17 school year: a swing school. 

In 2020, crews moved in dozens of modular building segments and renovated the existing gym so Willard could serve as the temporary home for Edison and Camas Ridge students while the two new elementary schools were built in south Eugene. Edison and Camas Ridge opened in October 2022 and October 2024, respectively, following two years of construction for each new building. With the opening of the last of the two new schools, Willard opened its doors to YG as the latest transplant.

Now there’s a sure sign YG will stick around for a long time.

“This sign is our beacon,” Principal Kimberly Ingram said during the ceremony celebrating its return. “It is a symbol of stability for our students, staff and community. To our students: look at this sign and know that your school is anchored – we are home.”