As Superintendent, I am charged with evaluating not only the District's academic programs but also its facilities. As part of an in depth facilities evaluation, the District hired an architectural firm to conduct a comprehensive needs assessment. This needs assessment, which included input from site principals, teachers, and staff, confirms that the District has significant facilities needs due to aging buildings and increased academic and extracurricular demands. Many of these facilities were built in the early 1950's and 1960's.
As the premier District in the State of California, we have award-winning programs throughout our athletic departments, our visual and performing arts departments, and in so many of our classrooms. However, in many cases, we are forced with operating first-class programs in second-rate facilities. I believe we can and should change this. The quality of our programs should be matched by the quality of our facilities.
Our primary goal for all of our facilities is to provide an optimal learning environment for our students. An optimal learning environment looks very different than the traditional classroom many of you are accustomed to. No longer are 30 desks, in five rows, facing a teacher the acceptable configuration. No longer will our students go to a computer lab to learn how to use technology. In an optimal learning environment, all classrooms are computer labs and these spaces must be designed for maximum flexibility, so our students can work in small groups, one-on-one with teachers, and individually. Additionally, optimal learning environments must span all three of the District's foundational principles; Academics, Arts and Athletics.
Academically speaking, many of our classrooms have inadequate lighting, inadequate heating and air conditioning and inadequate space. Portable classrooms should be temporary learning environments, yet we have several portable classrooms used at Carver, Valentine and Huntington as a permanent solution. These classrooms do not provide an optimal learning environment for our students. At the high school, we have classrooms and other facilities built in 1953 and 1960, which are not conducive to 21st Century learning. These inadequate facilities are poorly lit, poorly equipped and too small.
Our athletic programs bustle with enthusiastic kids, energetic coaches, and supportive parents. Yet ask our swim coaches and our water polo coaches about our high school pool and they will be the first to tell you that it is undersized and over programmed. The pool is the most impacted athletic facility in the entire District. As a result, our aquatics programs cannot operate up to their potential. We can change this by constructing a second regulation size pool so our children can compete at the highest levels. This pool can be a facility that the entire community can use and enjoy.
Have you been in our high school gyms in the summer when it's well over 100 degrees to watch our kids play basketball or volleyball? Or have you been to our gyms during the winter when the temperature is well under 50 degrees? There is no good reason why in the 21st Century our gyms shouldn't have central heating and air conditioning. We must install a comprehensive HVAC to both gyms at SMHS.
Visit our award-winning robotics program, and you'll see some of our best and brightest students working hand in hand with coaches and community partners to create amazing robots from scratch. These students are future engineers and scientists who work day in and day out, late into the evening on their robots. However, they are crammed into an undersized classroom which doubles as a robotics workshop. The robotics program needs adequate space to continue and expand upon its success.
The talent among our students and our staff in our visual and performing arts programs is second to none as should be our auditoriums. Have you visited the beautiful new performing arts centers at Arcadia High School built in 2012 or Monrovia High School built in 2010? Why should our neighboring districts provide state-of-the-art facilities for their band, choir, dance and musical theatre programs and not us? Our Neher Auditorium and Webb Theatre were built in 1953. They are without central heating and air conditioning and without necessary lighting, acoustics and technology. The time has come to construct a modern state-of-the- art performing arts center to provide our children with the facilities that they deserve. This performing arts center could be a crown jewel for the San Marino community offering many opportunities to celebrate the arts.
And speaking of the arts, the Valentine Elementary school community should not have to rely on the middle school auditorium to hold school concerts and performances. Valentine Elementary is the only school in the District without an auditorium or multi-purpose room big enough to host school performances.
In addition, Valentine Elementary also relies upon the middle school facilities to feed its students. Why should our elementary age children have to walk all the way to the Huntington Cafeteria just to get a hot lunch? Not only does this take considerable time, but it also prohibits many of our children from spending lunchtime with their friends. Thus, we are proposing the construction of a multi-purpose room at Valentine Elementary so that we can hold school performances and also serve our children lunch.
Have you been out on the expansive field and blacktop at Carver Elementary on a hot day or a wet, rainy day? Providing shade for our students is not just a convenience. And while Carver Elementary can provide students with a hot lunch, they must eat it under an inadequate, undersized, and inefficient lunch shelter. The construction of an expanded lunch shelter as well as shade structures at key areas throughout the campus will be a huge benefit to children.
Have you seen our middle school volleyball students serve from the hallway of our undersized and inadequate 'gym?' This structure, originally built as an art room, cannot hold regulation basketball or volleyball games, is not equipped with HVAC and is too small to accommodate Physical Education classes. Thus on rainy days or heat warning days, our middle school is forced to cancel PE. Fortunately, our Board of Education along with generous supporters, has already given us the green light to proceed with this very important project, which is set to open in 2018.
Given the results of this extensive needs assessment, the District has decided to take the next step necessary to determine community support for addressing our facilities' needs. The Board recently approved the hiring of a company to communicate with parents and other stakeholders regarding their opinions and options relating to facility needs, priorities, and financing. This is a step-by-step process; and we are now in the information-gathering phase. The needs have clearly been established and now it is time to gauge the support of the community as to how the District can address our facility needs.
Our children deserve school facilities designed to support championship level arts, athletics and academics. Modernization of the San Marino Unified School District will benefit the children of this fine community for the next 30 years and beyond.
The best District in the State deserves the best facilities in the State!
Sincerely,
Alex Cherniss, Ed.D.
Superintendent of Schools
San Marino Unified School District
