College Heights Receives Grant To Expand; Trailer Needed
Decatur Metro | September 24, 2009Michael and an anonymous tipster report that a letter was sent out to parents from College Heights Early Childhood Learning Center principal Suzanne Kennedy announcing that the pre-K program had received a grant to add additional spots to the current Head Start preschool program and open an Early Head Start (birth to 3) program at the school. Kennedy sees the need because CSD still is striving to close the achievement gap between blacks and whites and provide equal opportunities to infant and toddlers from low income families.
But as is often the biggest challenge in little ol’ Decatur, in order to expand, you need room to expand. And in order to accommodate expansion needs quickly, we must call in the trailers…or as they’re referred to in the letter, “learning cottages”.
The principal has called an open meeting to help decide how to use the trailer, umm learning cottage, to implement the Head Start and Early Head Start programs while “keeping our goal to blend the Decatur-DeKalb YMCA with the PCA program”. The meeting will be held next Tuesday, September 29th from 5p-6p in the school’s cafeteria.
You can read the full letter, provided by Michael, HERE (pdf).
Latest from Decaturish
Adding room for more 0-3 children sounds great! Hopefully they will work out the trailer/space issues.
I am curious – are all the spots at College Heights ECLC reserved for lower-income families? Or can any pre-k child that lives in City of Decatur (potentially) attend? How does that work?
Perhaps there needs to be two ECLC campuses instead of spreading classrooms around College Heights, Oakhurst, the high school (is this still going on?), trailers and who knows where else they are now. One could be the College Heights campus and one could be at Westchester. Westchester had two prek classrooms originally and the common spaces like the cafeteria, gym, media center, playground could handle 4 year olds. Hopefully those facilities haven’t declined too much. Perhaps this wouldn’t require trailers, construction, stream buffer issues, etc. There’s so much space at Westchester that I’d suspect we could still keep the Central Admin staff there but they might need to rearrange themselves into more cubicles. The gym and auditorium would still be available in the evenings for CSD public meetings. I would think this would be a more coordinated model and would allow CSD to put the child-friendly facilities at Westchester back into use. There aren’t even Decatur Rec activities there right now. To prevent northside/southside equity issues, the two facilities could be divided by age group, not neighborhood.
Just an idea. Maybe there’s good reasons this wouldn’t work. But it just seems like the ECLC concept is successful and growing and needs more space.
That’s actually a GOOD idea. College Heights is all over the place. And I honestly don’t want any child in a trailer, much less an infant or toddler.
I love probing the trailer distaste.
What’s so wrong with a temporary trailer, other than that it lacks a beautiful cornice along it’s roofline?
I think environment is important to the experience, especially for children. Now if the learning cottages look like this
http://msnbcmedia3.msn.com/j/msnbc/Components/Photos/060706/060706_katrina_cottage_hmed.hmedium.jpg
and won’t get flooded out and blown away like the examples this week in Powder Springs, I would be okay with it.
And then there is whole question of expanding when we don’t space and capacity to expand. And Snowflake’s point on wasted space at Westchester is right on.
Sidenote to Nellie — I had the good fortune to be working alongside Marianne Cusato when she designed the cottage you linked to and have since consumed much cheap wine and pizza on the porch of the built model. Others have since expanded her work to an educational setting, retrofitting them as Learning Cottages which can grow over time in a campus setting to create permanent quads and other versatile indoor/outdoor spaces.
A pretty good overview (a 9mb .pdf, so give it a little time) can be found here:
http://www.learningcottages.com/learningcottages.pdf
Also, a cool guy named Bruce Tolar is adapting them to provide a mixed use neighborhood of affordable, permanent housing in Ocean Springs, MS. Here’s some info on that:
If we are doping trailers, i think this model would be great! Hell, I’d want to work in one!
Uh, doing not doping.
So wouldn’t that make it a “drinking cottage”?
Scott, I have seriously just thumbed through this material; these are incredible.
For me, trailers aren’t an issue. I’d much rather have trailers than overcrowded standard classrooms. Kids seem to love them. The Clairemont trailers are gorgeous with bathrooms (Glennwood not as much but ok). I’m just hoping that the bathrooms aren’t what caused the almost fecal smell over there yesterday–plumbing flooded? My only condition for trailers is that there be an intercom for safety reasons. I know some CSD trailers have an intercom, not sure if all do now.
My comment about trailers in this thread isn’t anti-trailer, it’s about ECLC having to scatter its capacity around several campuses. Two campuses seems more efficient and coordinated than multiple campuses. On the other hand, prek’s used to be school-based rather than housed altogether. Both models have merit. The current model seems to need streamlining into a more coherent one.
They tend to not be “temporary.”
I don’t really understand the distaste either. I mean, most of my classrooms growing up (and come to think about, in college too) were painted mortar block with acoustic tiles ceilings, and linoleum tiles floors. What made the learning environment “nice” was the dedicated staff, the educational materials in the room, and the resources available to us. I’m all for appropriate long-term planning, but what if trailers are the most cost-effective, efficient, *flexible* solution? Would they still be a problem? (Granted, I don’t really understand a lot of the finer points of the space issues in CSD, but if trailers make the difference between my kid getting a pre-K spot or not, I’ll live with the trailers.)
Trailers incorporated ad hoc into a traditional school building tend to isolate and stigmatize the students and teachers relegated to the “outside” structures. They also tend to serve as glaring reminders of the community’s inability to plan and provide “real” facilities.
I’ve seen schools designed in a modernistic pod configuration where all of the classrooms were movable modules (trailers) arranged around a central administrative and service structure. This facilitated low cost and fast adaptation of the school system’s physical structure to ever-changing population needs across the area (Orlando in this case). My sister taught in such a school for many years and classroom growth and shrinkage was never a big deal.
Trailers themselves usually aren’t the problem. It’s the juxtaposition of tacking them onto a “traditional” school that creates a permanent VS temporay architectual cue.
“Trailers incorporated ad hoc into a traditional school building tend to isolate and stigmatize the students and teachers relegated to the “outside” structures. They also tend to serve as glaring reminders of the community’s inability to plan and provide “real” facilities.”
The first part of this statement is untrue–I grew up in Florida, went to school in trailers and traditional buildings, and no one was isolated or stigmatized; the best schools around where I lived had the most trailers–maybe the statement should read, “Trailers…tend to cause parents to stigmatize the students and teachers…” Where does the stigma come from? Perhaps from trailers being used for disabled or troubled children.
The second part of this statement is misdirected: yes there will be issues with planning, no one can plan ahead efficiently, but at the very least the school system is providing a space for students instead of jamming them 30-40 per brick and mortar classroom.
“Naaman” Gibbets
Congratulations! you’ve completely misread all three points of my posting 100% I’ve never had my writing so misunderstood before. I’ll have to try another tack so here it goes…
If done poorly, mobile temporary structures create an architectual statement of isolation and poor planning. This leads to a social stigma against the use of “trailers” in a school.
“trailers can be used in a school if it is designed for that. I actually used a Florida school system to point out that this construction method could be done right.
Using this modular, mobile approach is the key to responding to variations in school needs that are impossible to effectively plan for.
My main argument is that we should look at developing school infrastructure designed and built completely around mobile modular classroom units.
Interesting that College Heights didn’t figure into the reconfiguration discussion.
I personally like the existence of the Frasier Center at the high school and favor keeping it even at high cost. It serves many useful purposes there, not the least of which are as a learning lab for early childhood education classes at the high school and also providing teen moms the ability to stay in school and have close proximity to their child. Not to mention it is a big perk for CSD employees. There are many other reasons too that I won’t go into here.
That aside, I continually find it ridiculous that our schools are divided up by age/grade. Let’s put a different age at every single building, and then we can REALLY use all the facilities throughout Decatur! Let’s drive all the way to CHECLC for babies, then to Westchester for PK, then to our “local” elementary school, then to the “academy,” then to middle school and high school. To hell with neighborhood schools. Nobody really wanted them anyway, right? I mean, that’s not why we moved here, right? (Disclaimer to those posters on here who think I’m one of those parents who doesn’t understand how complicated all of this is: that was DEEP sarcasm).
Nellie, I think it would be great to use Westchester to offset enrollment problems at CHECLC–but I think we should use it in a different way. It’s imperative that we use the space we already have before building more.
I think we’re lucky to have the ECLC and am happy to hear that they have the funding to offer more spaces (Decatur is notorious for a shortage of childcare spaces). I hope they will be able to offer those spaces in a way that makes sense and is most cost-effective for the city.
I prefer to call them “étude des maisons”
And the answer is WESTCHESTER. But that wasn’t the question, was it? If they do expand and are able to keep the 0-3 model, it would make sense to keep it at College Heights. BTW, it sounds so much more PC to call them “learning cottages” — hilarious. A gussied up pig is still a pig… of course, I happen to like pigs ….
Yes, Westchester.
cranky old timer, where are your yard signs? You said you were running for school board.
I like the idea of having stock answers to repeated issues, as in ” And the answer is Westchester”. It’s kind of like the childhood advice while playing Oh Hell: “When in doubt, bid 7″. We could have stock answers prepared. We could even vote on them like Creative Loafings “Best” categories, e.g.
“Best response to a post about the school system”:
A. Westchester
B. Trailers
C. Why don’t you leave Decatur if you don’t like it the way it is
D. Bring brownies
E. Other_______________
“Best response to a post about reopening Westchester:
A. Flood plain
B. Storm buffer
C. Scott Boulevard
D. Grownups deserve the space
E. Other_________
“Best response to a post about flooding”
A. Siren
B. Schools are closed
C. Flood plain
D. Trailers
E. Other_____________
“Best response to a post about children in public”
A. Poor parenting
B. Schools are closed
C. Grownups deserve the space
D. Why don’t you leave Decatur if you don’t like it the way it is
E. Other___________
Perfect. I’m cracking up.
C, C, B, A.
Great post!
I totally missed this earlier! Priceless.
Best. Post. Ever.
( I realize that doesn’t add much to the discussion, but I’m laughing way too hard on the inside to think of anything insightful). Well done!
Did anyone answer Harpua at the top of the thread? If not, here goes…
Yes, College Heights is a free city school 4yr old pre k program, just like K-12. I think we’re very lucky to have a true pre-k in Decatur and I can’t say enough great things about Suzanne Kennedy and the staff there. The 0-3 program and after school care at College is run in collaboration with the dekalb YMCA and is not a free city scool program.
The 0-3 program has head start for 3 year olds and some 0-3 scholarships, though it mostly a traditional fee-based daycare. It’s also closed to non-Decatur residents.
thanks, jj and nelliebelle!
Regarding the 4-year old pre-k, are there enough spots for every 4-year old City of Decatur child that wants to attend?
If not, how are the available spots assigned (i.e. waiting list; lottery; first-come, first-serve registration day; priority to kids already enrolled in the 0-3 program)?
No, there are not enough seats for every child in Decatur. They start registration in February and the spaces are filled by lottery.
But currently enrolled CH kids get first dibs.
This past registration, for the 2009-2010 school year, there was not a lottery for city of Decatur residents.
We moved to the city in mid August and were put on the wait list (#1) after proving residency. Within a day, a spot opened up and we were given a spot. This might all be due to the fact that we enrolled after the start of the year. We know we were very lucky to get a spot.
All that property at Devry, just sitting empty….why not put a school there?
Since I’m real gullible, can’t tell whether you are serious or not. But seriously, during all the school musical chairs discussions, the concept of a K-8 or preK-8 school or schools has come up. A major limitation was no place to build one or two K-8 schools. The Devry campus could work. Evidently research shows benefits to a K-8 model and that’s what a lot of private schools do successfully. The benefits are obvious–continuity, building of community, chance for older children to serve as leaders, economy of scale, state likes larger schools vs. smaller, etc.. But there’s also obvious downsides–mega-schools can become more anonymous, research also supports the developmental benefits of middle school, shift away from neighborhood approach to elementary schools, children who don’t fit in socially don’t have a chance to start anew, etc.
I am very serious. Lots of empty land. Plus there are buildings where school admin could move to and free up Winchester. Sometimes you Decaturites overthink things….
….or we underthink things. I didn’t think about CSD Central Office moving to Devry. It could be a win-win-win-win-win-win:
– Westchester freed up
– CSD Admin still gets lots of space
– Flexibility to add capacity there when needed and shrink it when not needed
– Maybe less new construction needed
– Better parking–Westchester’s parking is somehow much fuller than when there was a 220 child school there daily with some 40-odd teachers and staff
– Could easily change the signage from Devry Institute to CSD Institute by adding “CS” in front and covering over the “evry”
I’m sure there’s a fatal flaw in this plan but I’m liking it…
Who’s gonna fork over the money to buy that huge piece of land?
I do like the idea of ad-hoc reuse of signage though. Very “green”!
You don’t need to buy the whole chunk of land-just the buildings. The land can still be used for mixed use whatevers.