“Weird but good” was how students described their first week at Lagunitas Community School, the new unified elementary program of the Lagunitas School District. After the board voted last spring to merge its longtime Montessori and Open Classroom programs, a parent-teacher team has met regularly to pull cherished tenets of each track into a single school. Classes are now twice the size, with around 20 students each, and the transition team says it’s been a seamless start to the school year thanks to the programs’ compatible values.
“We’re kind of finding a rhythm for all the students,” third-grade teacher Anita Collison said. “They’re all used to a different rhythm of the school day, whether they’re coming from other districts or [our programs]. They’re exploring these new areas and finding the boundaries but also the exploration of it all.”
The consolidation has helped the school district. In addition to only having to hire just one new teacher to fill the gap left by the departure of two full-time and two part-time staff, the migration of Montessori students from the lower campus to the upper campus allowed three classrooms to be outfitted as enrichment centers shared with the middle school. This presented a new pathway to developing performing arts spaces in partnership with the San Geronimo Valley Community Center.
Classrooms at the upper campus have changed, too. The sliding doors, which remained open as a part of the Open program, are now in motion throughout the day. Students are still welcome to get up and use the art room throughout their day, so long as the art room is open, said Principal-Superintendent Laura Shain. Student evaluations, which in the past were given as in-person conferences with parents for Open students and grades for Montessori students, will now be twice-a-year conferences with written reports on academic and social progress and student reflections. The new program has also leaned into the Open’s concept of daily parent volunteers.
Last Wednesday, a group of third graders were seated in Ms. Collison’s class making bookmarks. When asked what it was like to be back at school with double the number of students in their class and new curriculum, they said it was “weird but good,” and “different but fun.”
“It’s, like, fun! It’s like having a bunch of new kids in class,” one student exclaimed.
Prompted by low enrollment in the Open program, a loss of culture in the Montessori program and high staff turnover, trustees finally voted in March to merge the elementary programs. Most parents and staff supported the move, though a minority opposed it, including board member and Open Classroom founder Richard Sloan.
The administration pressed ahead with the help of a parent-teacher transition team led by Ms. Shain. The group, which will continue to meet through this school year, consists of six parents and the school’s four teachers: Ms. Collison; Alex Cusick, who teaches fourth and fifth grade; Jason Coale, the second-grade teacher; and Shannan Walt, who teaches a combined transitional kindergarten, kindergarten and first-grade class.
“There was this idea that it was going to be this contentious political process, and it wasn’t that way at all,” said Michelle Granelli, a member of the team whose child was in the Montessori program. “We’ve learned there were a lot more similarities in the two programs, but [they were] communicated through different languages. This idea that we’re now a community school resonated with both groups.”
The concept of a community school is one based on comprehensive services, extracurriculars and parent engagement. Ms. Granelli said the team is working on a decision-making model for parent meetings that pulls from both Open’s consensus approach and Montessori’s voting system.
A driving force in the decision to merge the programs was the exodus of students to charter schools. Over the past few years, the district’s elementary enrollment dropped by nearly half. For each student attending Ross Valley Charter School in Fairfax, Lagunitas loses $9,700. Ms. Shain said that seven students returned to the district this year. Twenty-two students from the district remain at R.V.C. and 25 students are at Heartwood Charter School—four new students and 21 returning students.
The plan for a new performing arts center in the lower campus’s old library building has shifted after the original plan was deemed too expensive. A new, two-part project will rejuvenate the lower-campus library and the outdoor courtyard behind the commuity center. In June, the board voted to move ahead with the plan, and it approved a preliminary design for the courtyard last Thursday.
The project involves a joint-use agreement between the school and the community center, which funded a $48,450 feasibility study last fall. It found that remodeling the 2,000-square-foot former library would have cost up to $5 million and achieved a maximum capacity of just 65 people.
Not wanting to throw the idea out entirely, school officials and community center staff pivoted to a two-part project that would still fit needs identified by stakeholders. The school currently has no dedicated space for performing arts. Instead, programs and creative clubs use classrooms as temporary stages or workspaces, which can often lead to technical issues with sound, lighting and screens.
“There was a huge desire among stakeholders in the arts for an outdoor venue,” said Alexa Davidson, the community center’s executive director. “Luckily, we live in California, where it’s nice 85 percent of the time and doing things outdoors is really possible.”
In the past, the courtyard has been shared by the school and community center for smaller events, but it has fallen into disrepair, with overgrown weeds, patchy grass and gopher holes. Ms. Davidson said she expects the courtyard project to be finished within the next 12 months. “We imagine using it for a concert series, plays and other events,” she said.
Ms. Davidson said the community center and the school district still have an interest in putting a new center somewhere on campus, but considering the available funding, this is the best option for now. “This way we can breathe life into an existing space on campus,” she said.
The community center is responsible for raising funds for the project and the school board must approve the final designs. Ms. Davidson said the center is working with experts to understand the best landscaping for a resilient and healthy outdoor space. She said a permanent stage structure and some type of covering are long-term goals.
Meanwhile, a small, indoor performing arts space will be created in one room of the lower-campus library. The other room will be reserved for a science, technology, engineering, arts and math center. Middle schoolers, who haven’t had their own library in the past, will have a new library in one of the old Montessori rooms. Other rooms are being turned into music and maker’s spaces, where students can learn podcasting and other creative technologies.