History of the School

The doors of St. James School opened on September 10, 1918. Three Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet arrived at the Redondo Beach campus at the invitation of Bishop Cantwell to teach the seventy students enrolled in the school’s original four classrooms. As the school’s enrollment steadily grew, four additional classrooms were added in 1954 and eight more in 1958. In 1963 the parish built an additional eight classrooms on parish property located in Torrance so that the school could serve its peak enrollment of 1060 students. As of 1990, the original Redondo Beach classrooms were converted to St. James Preschool, Parish Religious Education classrooms, and parish meeting rooms, while the Torrance site was designated as the St. James School campus. The O’Gorman Center was added in 1997 to serve both the school and the parish communities. In September 2017, St. James School celebrated 100 years of service, academic excellence and Catholic formation of students. The Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet served the school for the entire 100 years.

The current principal, Danina Flores-Uy, took the position in 2023.