$579 Million Robert F. Kennedy Community Schools Opens, Photos

 Many parents of the 3,700 kindergarten through 12th grade students reacted positively to the six learning centers on the 23-acre site in the crowded neighborhood west of downtown.

"They made it like a museum," said Maria Vilar, mother of a fifth-grader.

Marta Reyes said she loved the new school.

"It's beautiful," said Reyes, mother of a sixth-grader. "It was a little complicated finding our way around because it's so big, but it's very nice."

A state-of-the-art school "is exactly what these kids deserve," said Board of Education President Monica Garcia. "This has been an amazing investment in public education."

She was speaking of both the RFK campus and a $19.5-billion school construction program. When it began, 27,000 students were being bused out of overcrowded neighborhood schools, and even more were forced to get by with shortened academic years in schools that operated year-round, she said.

The RFK campus can fill its six small schools with students from within a nine-block radius.

"All the kids are walking, walking to school," said school district spokeswoman Shannon Haber.