Classes start at our new middle school campus for 300 students on April 9th! Students and teachers will move in to 12 newly renovated, healthy, up-to-date, green classrooms and small group spaces.
The next phase of construction will include:
- Conversion of a 4000 square foot former church sanctuary building into 9000 sq. ft. of usable interior space
- Two large student project areas, administrative offices, a full-service kitchen, and a large multi-purpose/assembly area with a stage
- Two 500 sq ft greenhouses added to the second level of the classroom building
- To extend learning beyond the classroom walls, 7,500 sq ft of outdoor learning spaces such as “living” green walls, solar power demonstration, a bicycle-powered audio system, raised bed gardens, and a living stream
All of these learning opportunities are natural extensions of traditional classroom instruction, facilitate the teaching of new “Common Core” Standards, and provide youth with a field-study right in their own neighborhood.
We intend the result to be a stronger sense of pride and responsibility, greater youth engagement, and more meaningful and lasting learning.
The completed facility will meet LEED certification–an internationally recognized standard of excellence for building and design strategies aimed at achieving high performance in human and environmental health–and thus will serve as a model and demonstration site, providing the community with an asset and source of pride.
ECS is partnering with Pacific Charter School Development (PCSD) for this project. PCSD is a non-profit real estate development organization that finds, acquires, finances, and builds low cost facilities into high-quality charter schools. Focused on neighborhoods with chronically overcrowded and underperforming schools, PCSD projects allow schools to concentrate on instruction rather than real estate development.
Stay tuned for an invitation to our official Ribbon Cutting Event on May 22nd.
