The Stanford Schools Corporation (SSC), started in 2005 (?), is a non-profit charter management organization (CMO) run by Stanford University's School of Education (SUSE). Currently, SSC operates two schools in East Palo Alto, California. East Palo Alto Academy Elementary School (ES) currently has grades K,1, and 6, but will eventually host grades K-8. The East Palo Alto Academy High School (HS) currently has grades 9 and 10, but will eventually host grades 9-12. Both schools serve primarily low-income students of color.
Like many CMOs, SSC struggles with providing satisfactory facilities for their students. Under California's Proposition 39 (November 7, 2000) Ravenswood School District, host to ES, and Sequoia School District, host to HS, must provide "comparable" facilities to that of existing district schools. At ES the facilities consist of four portable buildings sharing a campus and cafeteria with three other schools and lacks community spaces for assemblies or all-school events. The HS occupies a wing of a former elementary school.
The current facilities poses a serious problem for SSC, its administration, faculty, and students. In order to keep up the demands of a growing student population during scale-up and maintain their top-flight academic preparation, SSC needs facilities that, at a minimum, do not hinder its academic mission. Ideally, facilities for the two schools would encourage developmentally appropriate academic learning and personal growth. SSC's ultimate need is two new buildings built to reflect SSC's philosophy of learning. Short of that, the school's need retrofits and redesigns that make their current sites more conducive to their mission.
When retrofitting and redesigning spaces for use by charter schools, many aspects of the learning environment and the learning process need to be considered. By focusing the actions that are desired in the space, we will address the specific needs of the school as well as increase the effectiveness of the learning spaces.
Based on Shulman’s Table for Learning, our design will include areas for:
Our approach hinges on two key considerations: (i) Learners-first and (ii) Maximizing Adaptability of Design Features.
(i) In a learning environment, first priority goes to the learners. In ES and HS which primarily serve students of color from low income families, it is even more crucial that a conducive learning environment is created which enhances opportunities to learn and succeed as well as levels up the education playing field with other students. Our approach is sensitive to the learning needs of the students and is anchored upon learning theories, of which Shulman's taxonomy of learning is one example. As the project develops, we will continue to fine-tune the design plans, with the learners' needs in the foreground and backing provided from insights the team gain from this class.
(ii) Bearing in mind the constraints that the two schools face - of not having buildings made for purpose - our approach tries to maximize the adaptability of design features. Not having the luxury of constructing rooms for just one specific purpose, we look into innovative possibilities which allow multiple use of minimal resources.
Our client will benefit from our focus to maximize learning in our design of spaces while staying practical on the issue of resources.
Competition in this case is rather complex. Most of our competition is inherent in the contracts SCC has with the Ravenswood and Sequoia school districts. Because SCC operates on a year to year contract they have no long term security in their facilities. This may inhibit the SCC from wanting to put any monetary investment into a temporary space and resort to no action. The current space they are in is ephemeral making them hesitant to invest in any type of design reforms that are not extraordinarily cheap. Because they desire common space, more competition may arise from more portables or companies that can provide very cheap, short term facilities at a low cost.