Charter School Breaks Ground for New Building

Invoking the spirit of a 19th century barn-raising, teachers, parents and students at Vaughn Next Century Learning Center in Pacoima--along with a host of invited dignitaries that included Mayor Richard Riordan--dug in Thursday to help inaugurate a new chapter in the history of the innovative charter school.

Under the direction of Principal Yvonne Chan, hundreds of hands relayed hundreds of buckets of dirt from the site of what will be a new library and classroom building in a symbolic gesture of community support for the Pacoima school.

“It takes the whole community to roll up their sleeves and be responsible for kids,” Chan said. “It’s just like in the 19th century, there might be no money, or no construction company, but the barn still has to be raised.”

When it is completed, Vaughn’s new building will include 12 classrooms, a science lab and media studio, a teacher training center that will be staffed by instructors from Cal State Northridge, and a new school library that will be open to the public.

Chan said other plans for the building call for a computer service center run by former gang members, a retail store selling uniforms and school supplies, and a bookstore that will be run by a corporate partner.

The $2.4-million project is being funded partly by state money for reducing class size, public and private donations and a $160,000 grant from the Lopez Canyon community trust fund.

Former Assemblyman Richard Katz said Vaughn had the budgetary autonomy to get the project off the ground. “[Chan] will do anything to give the kids a chance,” Katz said. “At Vaughn, the focus is on the school being at the center of the community and that’s the way public schools are meant to be.”

“Computers are my favorite subject but I’m going to use the library and everything,” said first-grader Michael Alba, who was clearly more excited about moving dirt than he was about listening to speeches.

“If we all do it together, then we can build it faster,” he said.