Social studies teacher Gregg Solkovits remembers his days years ago at Monroe High in the San Fernando Valley as an unlucky campus wanderer, trudging from classroom to classroom, lugging teaching materials and personal artifacts around, as he did not have a room to call his own.
Some teachers had to do it — because L.A. schools in the 1990s and 2000s were vastly overcrowded and not all middle and high school teachers could have their own room.
But now, his ordeal — updated and re-contextualized — is being pursued as an instructional innovation.
The new Compton High School, which will open this fall, stands as a pinnacle example: Teachers will not have their own classrooms — but will conduct classes in various spaces depending on topic and availability. The high-tech classrooms themselves are rebranded as “learning studios” and will function much like college lecture halls.
“The big focus here was to create a space that’s very flexible and adaptable,” said Alenoush Aghajanians, who served as Compton High’s design leader for the DLR Group architecture firm, as she described the features in one classroom.
“So all these tables and chairs are movable, and there are cord rails hanging up from the ceiling, so they can get access to power in any configuration they might need,” she said. “And we created a space that will have a good projection screen. So students will have an ability to do projection and then tinkering — all these whiteboards are spaces for them to ‘tink,’ like when they’re coding. Students will have infrastructures to work, like an office space, let’s say, in the real world.”
Compton High Principal Larry Natividad, who, during construction, has had to operate his school at an old surplus middle school campus, is prepared to embrace the concept.
“It is like a college setting,” he said, while helping lead a tour of the school in late May. “So when students go to college, they could thrive even more.”
When not leading a class, a teacher will have a desk, a computer and limited storage space in a compact “collaboration room.”
Technology makes this concept feasible — students are reading, taking tests and completing work and even many projects online. Theoretically, teachers should have a lot less to lug from place to place — unlike Solkovits back in the day. Not to mention that Solkovits had to deal with cramped hallways and substandard classrooms.
The Compton High classrooms are spacious, designed with large glass panes facing both to the outdoors and the inner hallways.
Some teachers always have rotated from class to class and done fine — think about elementary music teachers, for example. (Compton High has a sparkling performing arts center for its music teachers.)
Compton teachers union president Kristen Luevanos said that school district leaders deserve credit for bringing in ideas, programs and resources to the district, but that there is a history of starting new things with little warning, too little teacher training and too little teacher input.
“How will this work with teachers who have mobility issues who can’t cart stuff every period?” she said. “How will it work with the walls — because they’re all glass — if you want a print-rich environment,” she said, referring to surrounding students with the printed word, including, literally, on the walls, such as their own work and excerpts from other writings.
She would like teachers invited — with pay — to work through issues over the summer so that the school gets off to the strongest start possible when the school year begins in August.
Some teachers are downright skeptical of the roving concept.
“Nope. No way,” said Nicolle Fefferman, a longtime L.A. Unified high school teacher and L.A. district parent. “As a teacher, I build a physical space that reflects a little of who I am, a little of who my students are, a little about our content, and a little about our school community … The foundation of public education is relationship building and we need our physical spaces to reflect that value. The sterile spaces are OK for shopping and hotel lobbies.”
An example of Fefferman’s point is the South L.A. classroom of Dorsey High Advanced Placement African American studies teacher Donald Singleton, which is decorated with African flags, dolls in colorful African clothing and a wall of fame that includes pictures of Thurgood Marshall, Wilma Rudolph and Colin Powell — a visceral setting within which Singleton and his students wade into the nation’s debate over Black history and race.
But Compton High is new and beautiful with families clamoring to get in — and the teachers union leader hopes the new concept works for students.
“Innovation is great and this concept is really interesting — and personally I kind of like it — but there are still a lot of questions to be answered,” Luevanos said.
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