High Tech Middle

Narratives

Architect Narrative

The design of this middle school began with an intensive, three-day Design Workshop held to gather ideas and information. With only 10 months from the beginning of the Workshop to the day students fill the classrooms, efficient communication between all team members was critical. The Workshop gathered ideas from not only school administrators and planners, but also designers, contractors, board members, facility management, teachers, and students.

As the project site is in an old Navy building built in 1943, it was also important to gather facts about the historic site, and incorporate them in to the overall design vision. Originally a technical training school for Navy air-conditioning repairmen, the building had undergone numerous renovations and retrofits, each of which had to be carefully peeled back in order to establish a clean, safe environment for children.

The following six Critical Success Factors were defined during the Workshop, and served as a frame of reference for the team throughout design, construction, and eventual opening of the school:

- Foster a sense of place and belonging: centers of activity for teaching clusters and student teams
- Stay on budget: economical materials and design solutions
- Stay on schedule: start to finish in 10 months
- Design to allow flexibility for varying grade levels
- Reflect and support the curriculum’s principles of Personalization, Adult World Connection, and a Common Intellectual Mission

Since children in grades 6, 7, and 8 have different needs based on their social and intellectual development, the Classrooms for each grade are clustered into neighborhoods. Each neighborhood has a central plaza space called a Studio. The Studios allow for both entire-grade gatherings and additional teaching space. The faculty is decentralized with the offices for each neighborhood’s teachers located off the Studios. Windows allow for observation from the offices of the Classrooms and Studio spaces, as well as the circulation areas. The solution of high-visibility, coupled with high sound ratings (STC), allows students to remain within a teacher’s view while providing office privacy and eliminating distractions.

This visual connection carries through to the rest of the spaces, and together with the neighborhood clustering, creates a sense of ownership over the immediate area. The Classrooms open up to each other via large overhead doors to accommodate team-teaching. The 25-foot wide doors incorporate full-height marker board writing surfaces and projection surfaces. These Classroom clusters are arranged along a naturally-lit circulation spine. This area is beneath sawtooth skylights, providing 100% of the required lighting levels via diffused daylight.

The spine is reminiscent of an urban streetscape, complete with varying setbacks, heights, and a neighborhood for each grade. The three neighborhoods reinforce the three guiding principles, and each expresses a separate, but related principle through changes in materials and textures, but not intended function. As a public space, the spine is also a Gallery to exhibit student work, and it connects the neighborhoods to the main school Commons, a sunken amphitheatre for all-school gatherings and presentations.

Educator Narrative

Launched in September 2003 by an industry and educator coalition, this middle school is a partner school to other schools in San Diego, CA. A small, diverse learning community with 320 students in grades 6-8, this cutting-edge school is founded on three design principles: personalization– the learning community is structured to allow teachers to know their students well; adult world connection — through community service and projects based in the community, students collaborate with adults on work whose success has meaning well beyond the school walls; and common intellectual mission — school leadership expects all students to go on to high school and graduate well prepared for post-secondary work, education, and citizenship. All student work relates to the school-wide “habits of mind.”

Innovative features of the academic program include performance-based assessment, daily shared planning time for staff, an emphasis on project-based learning, availability of technology in all classrooms, community-service experiences for all students, and close links to the high tech workplace. Specifically, the goals of the school are as follows:

• To integrate technical and academic education in a school that prepares students for post-secondary education and for leadership in the high technology industry.

• To increase the number of students from diverse backgrounds in math and engineering who succeed in middle school, high school, post-secondary education, and San Diego’s high technology industry. The student body includes Hispanic, African-American, Native American and Pacific Islander students. The process provides equal educational opportunities for both female and male students in math and science education.

• To provide all students with an extraordinary education, and to graduate students who will be thoughtful, engaged citizens prepared to take on the difficult challenges of the 21st century.

The curriculum is organized for independence, flexibility, and links to the community. It is a public charter school, operated as a non-profit corporation by a five-member board of directors. A larger community advisory board includes corporate partners, public agencies, neighbor-hood organizations, higher education institutions, parents, and other constituencies. Another non-profit corporation is responsible for all fund-raising for the school.

Internally, the middle school is structured as a high performance organization focused on personalization, engagement and achievement. Each faculty member serves as an advisor to approximately twelve students. Working in teams of varying size, teachers are responsible for the academic achievement of the 50-60 students in their group. Overall, the faculty represents a diverse mix of master teachers, newly trained teachers, and individuals from industry with strong content knowledge. The team approach helps teachers make the most of their varied talents, knowledge, and experience.