Social studies teacher Greg Solkowitz remembers carrying teaching materials and personal artifacts with him as an unlucky campus wanderer at Monroe High in the San Fernando Valley a few years ago, running from classroom to classroom, without a room to make calls.
Some teachers had to do that – because LA schools in the 1990s and 2000s were very crowded, and middle and high school teachers couldn’t all have their own room.
But now his ordeal – updated and recontextualized – is pursued as an educational innovation.
The new Compton High School, which will open this fall, will be its peak. Teachers don’t have their own classrooms, but they will hold classes in a variety of spaces depending on topic and availability. The high-tech classroom itself has been rebranded as a “learning studio” and functions like a university auditorium.
“The big focus here was to create a very flexible and adaptable space,” said Arenushuagajanian, who served as the design leader for Compton High, the DLR Group architecture company, explained the functionality in one classroom.
“So all these tables and chairs are mobile and have cord rails hanging from the ceiling so you can access the power in the required configuration,” she said. “And we created a space with a great projection screen, so students have the ability to project and then add to it. All of these whiteboards are spaces to “tinker” like they do when coding.
Compton Hylalina Tibivivivad, who had to run the school on the old surplus middle school campus during construction, is ready to embrace this concept.
“It’s like a university setting,” he said. “So when students went to college, they were able to thrive even more.”
If you are not leading a class, teachers have desks, computers and limited storage space in a compact “collaboration room.”
Technology makes this concept feasible – students are reading, taking tests, completing their jobs, completing more projects online. In theory, teachers should be far fewer than Solcovit of the time, wandering from place to place. Needless to say, Solcovit had to deal with cramped corridors and substandard classrooms.
The Compton High Classroom is spacious and is designed with large glass plates facing both the outdoors and the inner corridor.
Some teachers always spin from class to class and it worked. For example, think about elementary school music teachers. (Compton High has a sparkling performing arts center for music teachers.)
Compton Teachers Union president Kristen Lubanos said district leaders deserve credibility by bringing ideas, programs and resources into the district, but they have a history of starting new things with fewer warnings, fewer teacher training and too few teacher input.
“How does this work with teachers who have mobility issues that can’t cart any period of time?” she said. “If you want a printed environment, how do they work on the wall? Because they’re all glass,” she said. She literally mentions the students around her in printed words literally on the wall, such as excerpts from her own work and other works.
She wants teachers to help overcome problems over the summer and invite schools to get the strongest possible start when the school begins in August.
Some teachers are indeed skeptical of the concept of roving.
“No, not,” said Nicole Pfefferman, a longtime LA Unified High School teacher and parent in the LA district. “As a teacher, I build a physical space that reflects a little bit of who I am, a little bit of who my students are, a little bit of what we have about our content, and a little bit of what our school community is… The foundation of public education is building relationships and we need a physical space to reflect that value.
An example of Fefferman’s point is the highly arranged Southla classroom of Donald American American Donald Singleton’s Dorsey Highly arranged with walls of fame, decorated with photographs of African flags, colorful African clothing dolls, and photographs of Thurgood Marshall, Wil Muldorf and Colin Poel.
But Compton High is new and beautiful, and the family is looking for inclusion. And teachers union leaders hope that new concepts will work for students.
“The innovation is amazing and the concept is really interesting. Personally, I like it, but there are still many questions to be answered,” Lubanos said.
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