“Last year in June we broke ground, and here we are about thirteen months later pretty much putting the finishing touches on the school, exterior wise and interior wise,” said Mike Callahan, Principal of Centerview Elementary.
The district has made a focus on personalized learning over the last few years and this new building was designed with that in mind.
“We have a learning commons which is open to staff learning, student learning community learning, but it’s unique because it’s not your typical and or media center. It’s a place where staff members, students and community members can collaborate; where they can have deep conversations about learning and teaching and about what’s important to them,” Callahan said. “You’ll be able to see the learning stairs where people are able to sit and talk individually, collaboratively, as a whole group, they’re also able to present and share their learning with one another.”
Classrooms, or learning studios, as they will be called at Centerview, also offer adaptable learning spaces with moveable walls and flexible seating options.
“Five or six classrooms of students can be working as one, but can also have their identified space. But as we work and know our students, we’ll be able to really create experiences where they’re able to come out and be themselves, but also work in partnership with a peer of theirs and then work in large group formats. That’s what this space has allowed us to do, they’re adaptable and they’re flexible,” he said.
The building also has STEM spaces for students to make and create. Movement spaces for students to take movement breaks during the school day.
As Mike likes to put it, Centerview is not just outside the box thinking for the sake of being different.
“We have to think above the box,” he said. “We have to think outside of how I grew up and how I was taught and how I interacted with teachers and how I interacted with my peers. It’s not a two by four by six, meaning two sides to the book, four walls of a classroom, six periods in a day. I mean that’s very traditional in many ways, but as we see kids and they’re jumping into kindergarten this year when they graduate, 65 percent of the jobs that are out there aren’t even thought of at this point. So we’re sending them off in a world where they need to not just memorize but they need to really go deep with their learning. We’re really are trying to create a school here that is student centered, that is about a learner platform – that means the students and the teachers learning each day.”
Many other buildings in the district are getting updates and upgrades this summer. With building an adaptable school like Centerview, the hope is that it will serve students for many years without needing future changes.
“Ten years from now, we’re not going to have to recreate because this building recreates itself each day with students in mind and staff being able to design and be able to create based upon the passions and interest of the kids and so we’re set up well for the short term and the long term,” he said.
