Lakes Community High School

Narratives

Architect Narrative

A 1991 referendum to abandon their existing facility, EXISTING High School, and build a new high school was roundly defeated. The curing of the resultant breach spurred a rare iterative process where the District, in collaboration with the teachers union, rethought its educational philosophy, proved to the community its ability to create wonderful learning environments through renovations, then through an addition to EXISTING HS and ultimately through the NEW High School. A consistent group of Board members, teachers, administrators and designers collaborated for almost 10 years in an environment where new ideas were tested in the renovations that informed the addition projects where further new ideas were tested, which could be fully realized in the design of NEW HS. Now, concepts at NEW HS are being brought back to the further renovations of the original EXISTING High School.

The implementation of the vision for teacher-led curriculum in a small school environment to support student-focus had its micro-prototype at EXISTING HS in a learning area called “Wisdom Hall”. A large room was designed and equipped to accommodate multiple learning opportunities including lecture, one-on-one coaching and small groups. At NEW HS, undesignated rooms and decentralized learning centers in each classroom cluster translate this concept at a school-wide scale. Teachers can determine uses to meet the varied needs of all students and the different curriculum that each cluster may adopt from year-to-year.

There is a new definition of flexibility, physically and intellectually. For the science labs the most demanding features that might be required were identified so change wouldn’t be costly, nor opportunities limited. This principle also applies to the special instruction areas on that floor where applied technology, radio/TV/internet, health and a drama/Court room uses are anticipated. Their central location on the middle floor enables access by any cluster. Classroom floor flexibility is achieved by an office building concept. The masonry envelope and the structure on one side of the corridor permit all the build-out within the shell to be lightweight construction. Power is fed from above so these too can be easily changed. Classroom clusters can be configured according to “tenant” needs. The attitude is not that space can change, but space will change. Programmatically, it is OK not to know initially what space would be. When you don’t know, you have to think about what you need to do more flexibly.

While the EXISTING HS expansion was in schematic design, the architectural/engineering team toured Vienna to experience their exemplary school architecture that is committed to environments where students learn to become citizens of a community. Upon their return, the designers reinforced to their client the importance of community, interactive spaces. This led to EXISTING HS’s two-story entry/gathering space. Open interior space is advanced to a “Commons” at NEW HS where greater attention was given to identification of both random and programmed use: the amphitheater stairs can be formal seating when the ground floor is used for performance, or used simply as gathering/study space. A similar architectural vocabulary for both buildings’ entrances affirms EXISTING HS and NEW HS as part of the same community. Finally, closing the circle of learning by doing, in the further renovation of EXISTING HS, the community space is adapting the Commons from NEW HS.

Educator Narrative

The vision for our district and the new high school in particular, began to form in 1995 with an effort among the district Board, Administration and the Union. This became The Partnership for Educational Growth, a group of educators, parents and union representatives who met for about seven years to study innovations that were being used around the country that our District could adapt over time and in their improved or new facilities to advance education. After a number of visits and study, two models were particularly appealing: The Best Practices High School, a Chicago Public School, which was an outstanding model for teacher-led instruction and the Minnesota School for Environmental Studies— or the “Zoo School” — an example of a thematic small school. Both were committed to small learning communities. A vision for the NEW High School evolved that teacher-led small learning communities would create a personalized experience where all students would succeed.
The NEW High School is fully supportive of this philosophy. Planned for multiple learning communities within a 1,500 student capacity with the ability to increase to 2,000, NEW High School was designed to have two three-story classroom wings. Floors one and three are identical in both wings: each has eight classrooms, two multi-purpose rooms and most importantly, a large teacher planning area. It is the intent that this creates the opportunity for four learning communities throughout the building. The second floor in each wing is intended for science and can be shared among any learning community.
While the plan is important to enable clustering, collaboration and undesignated space for varied learning environments, the construction was equally important. We all talk about wanting flexibility. However, if we expect the teachers to develop their own curriculum and instructional models, we need to allow the space to change easily. Administration doesn’t proscribe what happens within a learning community. Thus, there is neither interior masonry walls nor lockers within the classroom wings. Drywall is easily demountable during a summer. This ability was crucial to the cultural change we wanted to achieve.
While the high school won’t open until fall 2004, its flexibility has already been proven. An elementary school in a neighboring district was recently found to have structural damage. NEW High School is currently home to that school and may continue to be for at least another year.
Our biggest challenge has been cultural change. Certainly it has been easier in a new building where there is no existing culture. But most interesting to me is that some teachers don’t want to be pioneers; some teachers don’t necessarily want to be in control. They want to be told what to do. All we are willing to tell them is that they must teach in a way that will result in students meeting the state’s Learning Standards. How they do it is up to them. We expect that over time learning communities will become thematic — business and economics, science and architecture, whatever — but for now we are concentrating on getting these pioneers to be willing to control the means to achieve educational excellence.