Ridgefield's First New Elementary School in Six Decades Opens This Month

Sunset Ridge Elementary is finishing construction on North 10th Street, the coyotes are keeping their name, and every elementary in town is about to look a little different.

There is a very specific kind of Ridgefield moment where you drive past a field you have known your whole time here, and then one day there is a school on it. That is North 10th Street right now. Sunset Ridge Elementary opens later this month, and it is the first brand-new elementary school the Ridgefield School District has built in more than 60 years. Sixty. Years. This town has changed a lot faster than that.

The Reflector toured the building on July 29, while a lot of the furniture was still coming out of boxes, and the picture they came back with is the one most of us have been waiting on since the groundbreaking: a finished-ish building, a playground going in, and a whole lot of coyote branding on the walls.

Here is what actually matters for families, plus the part that affects every elementary family in town whether or not your kid is zoned for the new place.

The basics

Sunset Ridge Elementary sits at 7025 N. 10th St. It is built to hold roughly 500 to 550 students, which is the number that should finally take some pressure off Union Ridge and South Ridge. Both of those campuses ran around 700 students last year, and if you have ever tried to do pickup at either one, you already knew that without being told.

The building came in at about $52.5 million. Roughly $15 million of that came from the levy voters approved in February 2025, about $21 million came from developer-paid impact fees, and around $16.5 million came from state funding. Worth saying plainly: a big chunk of this school got paid for by the same growth that made it necessary.

Yes, it is still the Coyotes

Back in September 2025, the school board voted to name the district's third elementary school Sunset Ridge Elementary, carrying over both the name and the coyote mascot from Sunset Ridge Intermediate, which goes away as the district reshuffles grade levels. That decision followed a district survey of 1,099 residents, mostly parents, and the majority came down in favor of keeping both the name and the mascot.

Translation: nobody has to buy new spirit wear. The gear you already own still works, which is the most quietly practical decision a school board has made in a while.

One nice detail that stuck with me. At the June groundbreaking, jars of soil were collected from Union Ridge and South Ridge to be returned at the new school's ribbon cutting. It is a small ceremonial thing. It is also a pretty good summary of how this district thinks about itself.

The K-5 shift affects everybody

This is the part I want parents to actually read, because it is easy to skim past if you assume the new school is somebody else's news.

Starting with the 2026-27 school year, Ridgefield's elementary schools move from a K-4 model to a K-5 model. That means fifth graders stay at their elementary campus instead of moving up, and the middle school picture shifts to a 6-8 configuration. The board approved that change at the same September 2025 meeting where it settled the name, and it was designed to line up with the new building coming online.

So if you have a rising fifth grader, their year looks different than the year the kid ahead of them had. Check your boundary assignment, check your start date, and do not assume last year's routine carries over.

Dates are pulled from the district and the school's own family updates. If anything shifts between now and the 24th, the district site is the source of truth, and I will update this post.

What is actually inside

A few things from the tour coverage that are worth knowing before you walk in on Back to School Night.

The playground is big, and the equipment was chosen so kids of different abilities can actually use it together rather than watching from the edge. There is a coyote structure anchoring it. Classrooms are set up with a mix of seating options instead of thirty identical chairs, including a set of movable logs arranged like a campfire for the Social Emotional Learning space, which is the kind of detail that sounds like a design brochure until you picture a group of eight-year-olds sitting in a circle actually talking to each other.

And there is coyote signage throughout, including a "Howling With Pride" wall above what will be a gathering space. I have not seen it in person yet. I will be there on the 20th, and I will take pictures.

Three elementary schools, one town

For anyone keeping a mental map of how Ridgefield's elementary picture looks this fall:

The bigger picture

Ridgefield builds a school roughly once every never, historically speaking, and now we are opening one because the classrooms genuinely could not hold everybody. That is the whole Ridgefield story in one building. New neighborhoods, new families, a downtown that keeps adding storefronts, and infrastructure hustling to catch up.

There is a version of this town that gets annoyed about growth, and honestly, some days I get it. But a new elementary school with an all-abilities playground and a leadership team that already knows these kids is a good outcome. Take the win.

Common questions

Grades 1 through 5 start Monday, August 24, 2026. Kindergarten starts Thursday, August 27, 2026.

Yes. Back to School Night is Thursday, August 20, from 5:00 to 6:45 p.m., and it is the first time families get inside.

New attendance boundaries were approved in December 2025. Check your address against the current boundary map on the district site rather than going off last year's assignment.

The intermediate model goes away as part of the K-5 shift. The name, the mascot, and the leadership team carry forward to the new elementary school.

The board approved the configuration change in September 2025 to line up with the third elementary school opening, and a district survey of 1,099 residents showed majority support for the move.

Roughly $52.5 million total: about $15 million from the February 2025 levy, about $21 million in developer-paid impact fees, and about $16.5 million in state funding.