Should student enrollment at Center School ever grow beyond 300, principal Lisa Escobar would recommend splitting the school in half as a way to preserve the dynamic that sets her school a part from regular high schools.
If it were to grow as it is, she would likely not have the time to spend with kids who need her most. Last week she cooled a hot-tempered a ninth-grader failing all of his courses. She listened to him and implored that he stay in school and take baby steps toward better grades, that he "wouldn't be able to support himself if he were to quit school." She wouldn't have time to stop another kid in the arterial hallway and tell him he needs to pass his next test. She wouldn't have time to listen to another student explain how she got caught smoking, about her break up with her girlfriend. And she's always ready with a bucket of red vines.
She also wants to keep the school art-integrated, meaning however possible, that art be incorporated into lessons in science, history, math and just about any non-art class offered at the school. In fact that integration is at the heart of the school's core value system.
"Art integration makes a difference and it is an important way to introduce new learning," Escobar said from her office, which overlooks the food court at Seattle Center. "Kids need to be prepared for lots of options."
And the school is no cakewalk. While it's thought of as an "arts school" it is college preparatory. Students are required to take three years of math, two years of foreign language and chemistry - all requirements of a four-year college. At traditional high schools, the classes are available, but optional. At Center School, however, there is no football team, no swimming team and no music. She can't do much about athletics, but does want to develop music courses. "We have diddrent things we offer kids, which is good for kids who don't fit into that comprehensive traditional mode," she said. "They have somewhere to go."
Below is a short Q&A with Escobar in which she talked about her unique student body, growing classroom sizes and developing partnerships in the future.
Challenges at Center School?
Our space. We're limited in space so we're limited in how many kids we can take in. Because we're an art school, our technology is different. We have all Macs, but the district is PC, so they won't support our Macs. [The school just upgraded computer systems using $12,500 in the annual budget and matching it with $12,500 raised by the Center School Community Association auction].
Another challenge is representing who we are so people make careful choices to come here so that they know what they're doing when they get here rather than a year or two later going, "this isn't what I want" and leaving. We want to hold onto our students while they're here.
Another challenge is "How do you provide an education for kids who are going out into the 21st century when our school system is based on the 1800s industrial model and that we're preparing workers for factories?" We're [Center School] no longer doing that, but the school system is still set up for that. Like our schedules, having kids learn in classrooms, kids regurgitating facts. We've [Center School] gotten away from that. We integrate our kids to think outside the box, learn collaborative skills, problem solving, that there's not just one way to find an answer.
We're non-traditional so that gives me a little more flexibility in what we do. How we present our curriculum can be different because we're non-traditional. So instead of a language arts class and a social studies class, we blend the two into a humanities class. In their junior year, students learn all about social justice issues. The kids pick a topic they're going to be involved in, they go down to Olympia, they lobby, and they go to King County meetings. They learn hands-on what it means to be involved in the political process.
Do you see the Center School approach growing?
For me, anytime you go over 300 students, you change the dynamic. You can rally your people around your core values: Art integration makes a difference and it is an important way to introduce new learning.
Overcrowding?
Right now the overcrowding is in elementary and middle schools. Everybody is looking at the wave and if it's consistent, then we'll eventually fill it at the high schools. There's a couple ways to look at it. One, we've outgrown our space and we can't get any bigger. If they say you must grow, then we'd have to grow if we want to or not. So if we grew to 400, they'd have to find a new space for us. We cannot hold 400.
Do you want to grow?
No. That would change the dynamic. So I would divide the school in two.
You have kids with autism participating in classes with kids without special needs. How does that work? What are the benefits of that?
For the kids who have Asperger's [syndrome, essentially high-functioning autism] they often have a high IQ and an ability to learn and so you want them to be engaged in the curriculum with other kids. A lot of times they have instructional assistants with them, but some kids don't need it. In fact, if you went into a class you wouldn't even know who had Asperger's and who didn't because they're very high functioning. And for the other kids it's just a matter of everyone's a part of the community and everyone has something to contribute and we all have things that you've got to get used to. So it increases tolerance for those kids.
In five years?
What I would like to see in the next five years is to get more digital in our photography, filmmaking and our graphic art, to be on the cutting edge - all of our avenues of art. I'd like to expand our partnerships with artists and art organizations so that we infuse art in everything that we do. To have them teach. Like with the Pacific Northwest Ballet, they're going to come and teach a workshop in ballet and then we'll go over there to see these professional ballerinas perform and practice.
We do that with the Seattle Rep. They teach all of our drama and we actually do a play at the Rep. Currently we don't have any organized music, but we have a lot of kids who are musicians. So we should be able to tailor the curriculum to what our population is. So if we have a whole group of kids who are musicians, we should be offering venues for music.
We need to start slow. We have a very good relationship with the Rep. That's a great model for us. There's a lot of networking. You have to build that trust that you have that credibility and my role is making that connection so that people are open to us.
I see us expanding to outside these walls. There are other art schools that I'd love us to connect with.
Another way I want us to go is to see how others have done it and model after them. We do have professional dancers at the PNB who go to school here. So we're able to work their schedules so they can get to their rehearsals.[[In-content Ad]]
