Today I wanted to share with the few of you who still visit here photos and info about my new school. I’ve mentioned before that I am changing to a brand new school this year that hasn’t even opened yet. Since February I’ve been involved in planning and design of the Small Learning Community that I’m a part of. There is a whole lot of work to do to open a new school; there is also a whole lot of excitement. There are rules and student expectations to be hashed out, there is curriculum mapping to be done, there are units to build, there are colleagues to get to know, there are classrooms to set up, there are basically ANY thing you can imagine a school needs to be done before students come. I’m excited, but man am I sick of attending meetings and trainings. However, beginning the year as a united front is so important. We have been working our butts off, and much of the work we’ve volunteered to do because we know it needs to be done.
One of the most exciting things in this endeavor is that we are part of something new and exciting and get to open a brand sparkling new school. The majority of educators don’t get to do this. My classroom is on the 4th floor facing south. Facing south means I can see Griffith Park Observatory, and all of downtown L.A. from my classroom. We have phenomenal views, not to mention lovely storage. Yes! Storage! I can’t believe it. Here are a few pics, they aren’t great but will give you the general idea.
This is the front of the school. Notice it is still under construction.
This is the inner courtyard of the school. Yes, it’s VERY modern.
This is exactly how my room will look at the front. See all those sliding white boards? 4 of them! All with storage behind, below, and to the sides. Holy Moly! That’s my awesome AP in there showing us the TV closet, though we don’t have TVs because we ALL have digital projectors mounted in the ceiings. You can see the screen for the projector in this pic 
Our SLC has 2 styles of desks. These long tables with comfy green plastic chairs. We also have these interesting shaped green desks that can be individuals or put into groups. My room currently has the long tables and since I’ve never had these, I think I’ll try them out this year. Back in the corner you see a lone white board, that’s my teacher’s desk area.
Our Science rooms are HUGE! Man are they huge with these cool semi-barstool desks to sit at the lab tables.
Any thoughts on opening a new school? No hate mail for how nice these rooms are please
Filed under: Teaching, education | Tagged: high school, new school, school
Wow, that looks great!
Okay. That totally looks more like a community college than a regular old high school. Geepers.
My little brother’s just five-year-old high school looks like a community college campus. Walking around it makes me ill, it’s so nice.
I guess I’m bitter. I went to the second-oldest school in town that proudly displayed a plaque of WWII losses …
Just gorgeous! It’s so nice to see public money being used for a good cause. Enjoy those fabulous whiteboards and all that storage space.
Please let us know how your students react when they see the school.
It looks grand.
Beautiful! You’ll do great things there.
Hi All,
Thanks for coming by.
Chavi, it is college like except we have learning walls (i.e. lots of space for kid work and stuff like that.
I was teaching at a school that is a historic landmark. It was beautiful architecturally but forever dirty and worn in. I loved the warmth of it, the greenery and gardens, but there is something special for inner city kids to have NEW.
Raizy, Thanks. I agree. It’s about time money is spent in good places. However, I do work for the 2nd largest district in the nation and they’ve built a TON of new schools recently and some have cost twice what they should. I mean, why did LAUSD think they needed a fancy Swiss architect to build a school downtown? My school however? One of the least expensive and built by an architect with a poor reputation for getting things done on time. But it’s sturdy, it went through an earthquake already afterall
Caps, thanks! We miss reading your blog!
When is your first day of school? I’ll bet you can hardly wait to get into those spacious quarters!
tamara – as soon as i saw “Small Learning Community” and “New School” I started to smile. That is exactly how we are setup. This will be our third year at our school. We have 4 small learning communities (800 students in each). I am actually moving from one SLC to another this year and it is a big, big change for me. I am excited about it though. I am an SLC chair (which means I get to be in on a lot of planning myself). It is a great way to setup a school.
How are your kids arranged? Ours are completely random. Each learning community has about the equal amount of classes in them, so in essence each community is a small school within a huge 5A high school.
Here are some pictures of our school when it opened:
http://picasaweb.google.com/david.duez/AHS_Aug_2006
HI David,
The school is set up in 3 small learning communities and then one totally separate school set up in the DiplomaPlus format, you can google that.
We have 3 communities all with Career Tech Ed themes. All the Assistant Principals and our principal are big on preparing kids for both work or higher ed. Our schools are: STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Medicine). This is the group I’m in. Right now we have a strong BioTech and Engineering program (strong i n that our teachers have done tons of training this summer). The other schools are AME (Arts Media Entertainment), and BTLR (Business Technology Labor Relations). In building the school a lot of thought was put into what careers are avaailable in our surrounding areas and what does our society need. There is a HUGE need for medical careers and engineering. The business sector is always strong and the AME group is pefectly suitable since we are in Hollywood and literally next to and across form multiple TV and film studios.
The kids get to make a first, second, and third choice of preference. We try to place them in their first choice until one school fills up. Right now AME and then STEM are most popular.
The school will open with 9, 10, and 11 so we’ll be smaller than normal our first year. Otherwise our school caps out at 2200 I believe. We have chosen to do block scheduling. I forget the official name but we are doing a rotating A B day. basically the go to 4 periods a day, rotating between periods 1-4 one day, then 5-8 the next. I think this will be a good model in preparation for how college courses are.
What else can I share? OH! Next year we will likely go Pilot. Pilot schools are new to LA and are a comfortable cross between a regular public school and a charter. It’s like a charter because we have autonomy over staffing, budget, curriculum, calendar, etc. BUT, we are still part of the union, the district, etc. We get freedoms but have to prove to the district we can handle them. For info on Pilot schools you can check out Boston Pilot Schools. 8 of us went to Boston in March to learn about and visit schools in this format.
Any other questions? I’m all ears.
Very interesting stuff! Very cool that you are doing “small learning communities” — that is a big movement. We are also focusing on something called “Assessment for Learning.” Not sure if you have heard of that.
The block schedule is something I am very familiar with and I taught in that format for many years. But, with our new school we switched to Modified Block. Pretty crazy, but basically there are two block days (Wed/Thu) and the other days are 7 period days (M, Tu, Fr). I really like it because it is a balance of both worlds and we get an extended 90 minute period with each class once a week (the other periods are 50 minutes).
Would love to learn more about things as it gets rolling. What you learn is that there is always more to it when things get underway. We thought our learning communities would just function on their own, but it takes a lot of work. There is a lot I’ve learned.
I’ll keep posting, and if I lag, pinch me. Sometimes I forget some of the things that make good blog fodder. Perhaps that’s why my hits had been low as of late.
One thing I am certain of is that we have been putting in our time and efforts. We also have an AMAZING AP who I have respect for in all areas. I can be upfront with her. She can call me on my crap. I can share my concerns without judgement, and she is there for support and friendship. We are doing things differently at my school. Since when do we actually like and WANT to work with our APs
Dear friend,
I am involved with creation of a unique school called India First Foundation in about 22 acres of huge land
. We wish that or children grow here with a global outlook and Indian soul, with ethics and values and respect for the environment. We are creating a green school- clean energy, clean water, organic farming, agriculture, diary farming , rain water harvesting,along with all science and technology and wish to extend these services to the neighbouring 10 villages too. The purpose is our children understand the value of sustainable develoment now itself so that in future they will have enough water and energy.
Your school class rooms I saw! I wish you good future and growth in the school.
I wish to know how are the people connected with the school doing their branding? ( apart from advertisement)
Pl comment?