Los Angeles: Educational Facility Planning in the Cahuenga Neighborhood
LOS ANGELES
The one square mile district served by the Cahuenga Elementary School includes a culturally diverse community of 50,000 residents. At present, more than 1,600 elementary students are bussed every day from the neighborhood to remote school sites. The 1998 Los Angeles Unified School District master plan proposed a new 1600 student elementary school on an 8-acre site across from an existing 1350 student elementary school that was vehemently rejected by the community.
The alternative community-based planning process, based on the Concordia model, included a core group of more than 100 of the community’s stakeholders. Because of the diverse population, planning meetings were conducted in English with simultaneous translation in Korean and Spanish. The community’s alternative master plan calls for six small schools located on smaller and less disruptive 2-3 acre sites. In order to encourage more community and parental engagement in schools, the sites are distributed throughout the community in neighborhoods with the largest parent/student population. Each school site will also incorporate non-school facilities based on individual neighborhood and community needs. The proposal calls for one site to be planned in conjunction with an adjoining senior center, where programs and facilities can be designed to encourage inter-generational learning and mentorship. Another site will be developed in partnership with an existing YMCA. The ongoing planning and design process will continue to engage the community’s collective wisdom during the programming, site planning and design phases of projects.
