Elementary School’s Sights Set on Science

Ten years after a now-retired South Los Angeles state senator pushed through the necessary legislation, a science-focused neighborhood elementary school is taking shape in Exposition Park.

Beginning in the fall of 2004, 850 students, mostly from the neighborhood, will begin attending the charter school, a result of a partnership of the Los Angeles Unified School District, the California Science Center, USC, and other public and private entities.

In addition to the charter school, serving kindergarten through fifth grade, the partnership will build a Center for Science Learning at the site to train thousands of teachers.

Both the $24.3-million Science Center School and the $27.7-million learning center will be in and around a converted Armory Building just east of the Rose Garden and across Exposition Boulevard from USC.

The author of the original plan was then-state Sen. Teresa Hughes (D-Inglewood). But by the time everything came together, it fell to Gov. Gray Davis, a month shy of the March 5 gubernatorial primary, to preside over a ceremony Monday.

The event, marking the school’s creation, drew an array of other speakers, including Los Angeles district Supt. Roy Romer, Executive Director Jeffrey Rudolph of the California Science Center (formerly called the Museum of Science and Industry), Rep. Diane Watson (D-Los Angeles) and Hughes.

The new school will not be a magnet school, but instead “a model school ... that will focus on math and science and integrate language arts, social studies and fine arts in the curriculum,” Rudolph said--mostly for students who live in the neighborhood, though some outsiders may be admitted as well. Admission criteria have not been settled.

The school will include 28 classrooms, six common rooms, with spaces and equipment for group projects within a classroom or between classrooms. Four classrooms will connect to each common room.

Students will learn to develop and test ideas as they create their own exhibits, some of which will be displayed in the Science Center.

There will be a multipurpose room for use as a cafeteria and auditorium.

The Center for Science Learning will include 10 thematically designed classrooms and two laboratory spaces. The classrooms will be used for teacher training, workshops for children, parent-child classes and community programs.

There also will be a professional development library for educators, a video production studio and a Science Garden, a sheltered space with exhibits.

Davis, in the ceremony’s keynote speech, said he expected the school and learning center to “provide as good an educational experience as you can get anywhere in America.”

Rudolph said the construction financing is coming mainly from a Federal Emergency Management Agency grant, state funds and education bonds approved by the voters.