Executive Director's Report: A school can be a community's heart and soul
By Anne L. Bryant
01/08 -- When a school board/ superintendent team gets it right, it makes my heart sing.
Last week, I had the opportunity to attend a celebratory luncheon hosted by the American Architectural Foundation (AAF) and KnowledgeWorks, a community-building foundation in Cleveland. These two organizations and many others, including NSBA, have focused on a concept that fits right into our strategic vision -- building schools that are the centers of our communities.
When Richard Riley was secretary of education a few years ago, he convened a group of education leaders and community school organizations to focus on this issue.
Instead of cookie-cutter architectural drawings with efficient low-cost traditional classrooms like the schools I attended, the group focused on creating schools that meet the community’s needs -- schools that are open all year and during weekends and evenings; that provide flexible space for academic, social, and creative learning; that have technology integrated throughout the facility; and most important, offer an inviting environment for adults, as well as young people.
That commission talked a lot, and we had some pretty good recommendations. I even wrote a column about it in School Board Newsin 2003.
And some of us continue to work on this concept, including Marty Blank, whose organization, the Coalition for Community Schools, does amazing work to create community-based schools. Several years ago, AAF and KnowledgeWorks began a competition to shine a spotlight on schools that were created to serve an entire community.
The 2007 winner of this prestigious Richard Riley Award is the Rosa Parks School in Portland, Ore. The story behind this school is a compelling one because it involves a dedicated school board/superintendent team working with a number of “bureaucratic” city agencies and a local Boys and Girls Club.
The site was a wasteland of deteriorating military housing in a crime-ridden neighborhood with a school that, by all definitions, was clearly in need of improvement. The city planned to tear down the school and build a new one.
When the housing authority proposed selling the buildings, city officials began talking about the potential of literally transforming a section of the city and creating a school that would also serve parents and other adults in the community with a community center, library, and training opportunities for adults.
The response from David Wynde, a banker and school board member, was, “Nice idea. Let’s figure out how to find the money.” And he did. Through a creative and highly leveraged financing system, his bank, along with the school district and city government, showed how a school could truly become a center of the community.
In announcing the award, Ronald Bogle, president and CEO of AAF, called the Rosa Parks School at New Columbia Community Campus “a national model for how the creative design of a school can help to revitalize an entire neighborhood.”
The school also was selected because its design supports small learning environments, it makes a variety of services available to the entire community, and it has a LEED certification, which means it is environmentally friendly and conserves energy.
The campus was built on land donated by the Housing Authority of Portland and includes a Boys and Girls Club, a revitalized park, and a recreation center, as well as a K-6 school.
During a celebratory luncheon, Wynde described the financing; Vicki Phillips, the former superintendent, now with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, eloquently told the story from her perspective, praising the leadership of the entire board and school staff; and Doug Capps, the project manager for the Portland Public Schools, spoke about the community engagement process.
From the start, the project team reached out to the current inhabitants of this rundown place. Large town hall-type meetings were held with the goal of getting every single member of the community to speak about their hopes and dreams.
People said things like “I want to be able to walk my child to school and not be afraid of being shot,” Capps recalled, or “I want a good school where my child will be happy and learn.”
He told how one frail, elderly woman came to all of the meetings, but never spoke. Capps eventually approached her and asked what she wanted. After a long pause, she said, “I want the birds to return.”
Fast forward two years -- opening day of the new school. It was spectacular. Capps showed us pictures of happy children clamoring to begin their first day. You could almost hear the laughter and shouts of joy.
Just as the ceremony was about to start, with the entire community assembled, two geese circled overhead and landed right in front of the door.
So perhaps the old lady was prophetic. Those birds certainly seemed to be a symbol of the life that this school brought to the community -- and how, in fact, an entire community worked together to make a dream come true.
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