Taking the Schools to the Children

Paul Cummins
Mirror Contributing Writer

Greetings. And bravo to the Santa Monica Mirror for this new journalistic venture. As a longtime educator (a founder of Crossroads School and New Roads School) and local resident, I am looking forward to exchanging views with readers in these pages and to provoking thought on a wide range of issues. Because I am so deeply entrenched in education, I will focus often on educational topics but will discuss social, political, and cultural concerns as well. Here and now, I want to focus on an educational problem that is gathering much public attention and which I have become deeply involved: school overcrowding.

I recently attended a groundbreaking conference at the Getty Center that was aimed at developing new perspectives to this problem. The conference, "New Schools, Better Neighborhoods," was organized by David Abel and Steve Soboroff, both civic leaders and members of the Citizens Committee on Proposition 13B. It was, I believe, historic for California in that it brought together leaders from all areas of city leadership—citizens' groups, officials from the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD), the Mayor's office, city government, architects, state government leaders, etc. to consider how we can create innovative designs for schools, designs that will be responsive to neighborhood needs and desires and that are feasible given government requirements and restrictions,. This appears to be a huge, and at first glance, a seemingly impossible task.

Let's backtrack for a minute to place this conference topic within the historic moment:—LAUSD is bursting at the seams, Los Angeles needs to build 51 new schools and approximately 50 new children's centers (more than 100 new structures) ASAP!—It now takes about five years to get a new school built.—The overcrowded areas are desperately short of available acreage for new schools with playgrounds, parking, gyms, etc.—The LAUSD and state requirements for the process of selecting a new school comprise a list about as long as the income tax code.

Consequently, we are at a place in time where new schools need to be created fast, yet the rules are ponderous and the space unavailable. What do we do?

Conventional thinking would require condemning dozens of homes, apartment buildings and stores, and relocating these folks ~ a costly, politically divisive, time-consuming matter. Another old way of thinking dictates the following formula: a high school should encompass over 3,600 youngsters, a middle school over 1,800, and an elementary school over 1,000. In fact, at the Getty Center Conference, members of the LAUSD real estate department presented a case study showing how they could create a new school in the Cahuenga Elementary area by condemning properties.

The Conference suggested some new approaches. One is to create new schools on a smaller scale: more schools with fewer children, on smaller plots of land. A second case study was presented to illustrate how this could be done.

The study, the proposed Camino Nuevo Charter Academy, is a project that I have been working on since last summer. Briefly, the Camino Nuevo plan ~ to start an elementary school (K-5) of 240 students in an empty mini-mall in the McArthur Park neighborhood. Reverend Philip Lance, an imaginative Episcopal priest, who had started a store-front church and then two businesses with his parishioners, was approached by neighbors to help them start a new school They were dissatisfied with their local school that had recently ranked in the 9th percentile on state scores. Reverend Lance then approached me, and our foundation— the New Visions Foundation d.b.a. New Roads School—to provide educational leadership. A third partner became ExEd, a Santa Monica-based private organization headed by Bill Siart, Former President of First Interstate Bank. ExEd provides financial management and expertise in creating charter schools.

Camino Nuevo Charter Academy will be devoted to developing English literacy within a Crossroads School—New Roads School philosophy of educating the whole child. In terms of space use, it will utilize existing space. Moreover, it will not dislocate or relocate anyone; it will be for neighborhood children not bused in kids; it will take advantage of neighborhood resources—parks, libraries, etc.

We think this is the right model for many new schools. This method is less expensive and can be used more quickly. Philip Lance, Bill Siart, and I plan to open the Camino Nuevo Charter Academy in September 2000, making, this a 24-month process from concept to turnkey. Furthermore, many studies have shown that smaller is better. Small schools allow for a greater sense of community' more personal relations for every group of constituents—teachers, administrators, students and parents—and small allows for greater accountability and more accurate assessment.

Ironically, I think that necessity taught me many of these design lessons years ago. A group of us created Crossroads School in 1971-72. We did not have enough funds to buy a big campus, so we leased one building (Motherhood Maternity Warehouse, interestingly enough) on 21st. Street, and, in subsequent years, bought or leased 13 other properties, including an auto body shop, a machine shop, and two empty apartment buildings. We displaced no one. For 28 years, our school did not have a gym (finally, we will have one in 2000), yet during those first years, we won two state championships and six CIF championships in boys' basketball. We simply used community gyms and parks.

One of the clear messages coming out of the Getty Conference was that we need to be more imaginative in the coming century to solve our problems, and that government and civic agencies, public and private groups, and citizen groups will need to cooperate and cut through existing red tape As daunting as that may seem, I think we can do it, but only school by school, one small school at a time.