Educators Plan New Temple for Learning

A South-Central Los Angeles charter school has just bought itself a sanctuary, and the church officials who owned it couldn’t be happier.

After nearly a decade, the Watts Learning Center has a place to call home.

The charter school closed escrow Thursday after four years of hoping to buy the Olivet Baptist Church site at 310 W. 95th St., where the school has leased the church’s classrooms and brought in bungalows to teach additional students.

Fittingly enough, school President Gene Fisher called the transition a godsend.

Olivet’s pastor agreed.

“I am just elated about it because it was a deal that we wanted to make,” said Pastor Andre W. Marshall, who has led the congregation for two years.

“Some of the members may have been a little antsy about moving at first, just because it’s change and people don’t like change,” he said. “Now, almost everybody’s thrilled about the move.”

The church is moving out, the school is moving in, but neither has take any action yet. For starters, the church has nowhere to go. And the school has some construction work -- and a $4-million capital campaign to launch.

The church’s sanctuary will become the school’s multipurpose room. Its wooden pews will be replaced with folding chairs so parents can watch their children perform.

The podiums will have to come down as well, Fisher said. And so will the sanctuary’s stained-glass windows.

“This is something that we’ve wrestled with,” Fisher said of the windows decorated with crosses. “But we’re a public school, and I don’t think it’ll be appropriate.”

Besides, he said, the glass panels don’t allow enough light for the multipurpose room.

Fisher looked up at the sanctuary’s raised ceiling.

“It’s a great space,” he said from the altar, looking past the empty pews and pointing at the doors of the church. “When they come through the campus they’ll come through here.”

Fisher smiled. His vision for the 9-year-old school was coming together.

From where Fisher and Marshall stand, the good news goes both ways. Olivet Baptist wants children to read the Bible. And Watts Learning Center teaches children how to read.

“So many things, as they say, work together for the good,” Fisher said.

Marshall said the church couldn’t afford the mortgage since its congregation dropped from 500 to about 50 before he took over.

But there are no worries from the pastor’s perspective. Only an abundance of faith that better things will come -- and relief that the church no longer has to pay for the building or its upkeep.

“I am just thrilled about the whole deal,” Marshall said. “It’s totally setting us up for something better.”

The school has become known for doing a lot with the little bit that it has. After moving into the church’s seven classrooms in 2000, the school brought in four bungalows to house more classes and the principal’s office.

By most accounts, students are flourishing. The school’s Academic Performance Index score of 789 out of 1000 is outpacing the traditional neighborhood campuses, and it was named a California Distinguished School in 2004.

“What are we here for?” Fisher asked. “Excellence. Once that mission becomes a part of your DNA, so to speak, it becomes a lot easier to climb.”

Caprice Young, president of the California Charter Schools Assn., praised the school for its accomplishments.

“Watts Learning Center is one of the most deserving schools on the planet,” Young said.

Many charter schools have to “hermit crab” their way to a permanent home -- going from warehouse to mini-mall to church to synagogue, looking for a place to teach their students, Young said. The search is daunting enough, and for Watts Learning Center to buy a permanent home makes the school even more distinguished, she said.

Under the charter school law, these independently run, publicly financed campuses are entitled to facilities provided by the districts that contract with them.

But in many cases, districts do not have the buildings or the sites for them.

“What’s amazing is that these charter schools that have to beg and borrow are doing better than other schools in the district,” Young said.

Greg McNair, chief administrative officer of the Los Angeles Unified School District’s charter schools division, said many of the vacant campuses in the district are located too far west for the South Los Angeles schools, and either need renovation or are targeted for other purposes.

“We understand that finding facilities is difficult,” McNair said. “We’re all competing right now for the same land.... Unfortunately for all of us there are really no good solutions.”

Fisher is planning big things for the 1.2-acre site, including such neighborhood improvements as a wireless network and green space.

Fisher also is eyeing the vacant lot across the street from the school, and even the lot that’s just behind the sanctuary for eventually expanding the campus.

“The long-range goal is to go from cradle to college,” Fisher said.

It’s a far cry from the school’s humble beginnings in 1997, when all Fisher had was three teachers, a principal, an office manager and two kindergarten students.

Talk about small classes. Cheryl Jackson, who teaches a class of 20 second-graders, remembers having to share those two students with the other teachers.

“While one was teaching, the other did lesson plans,” she said. “The third was out with Mr. Fisher, trying to recruit more students.”

By the end of the year, the school had three kindergarten classes, Jackson said. And it added a new grade level every year. The K-5 school now teaches 240 students.

“It was probably best that we grew slowly,” Fisher said, “because we were able to develop the quality.”

Fisher said he wanted to prove that inner-city children can learn just as well, and even excel, in school as any other child.

“There’s nothing wrong with the children here,” Fisher said. “What they need is the resources. We’re building the bridge between ability and performance.”