Some of the poorest students get the newest, fanciest public school around: Compton High
Students from among the poorest families in California are about to get the newest, most up-to-date public high school in the state as the rebuilt Compton High prepares to open.
The brand-new $225-million, 31-acre campus is strikingly innovative — even experimental in some ways: The library has no books; it's all digital. Classrooms feature an expanse of windows and sliding glass doors. Security measures are high-tech and largely invisible.
Traditional components of a high school are meant to be top-in-class. Each station in the weight room is outfitted with an iPad so athletes can design and monitor workout plans. Athletic facilities include two baseball fields, a football stadium, a soccer field, multiple basketball and tennis courts, a swimming pool and a large gymnasium.
And for musicians, dancers and drama kids, the performing arts center got a $10-million donation from Compton native Andre "Dr. Dre" Young — commemorated with a massive mural of his face on the building.
The new campus was showcased to the public Thursday and, in the fall, will welcome students — who have been roughing it for six years in temporary quarters at a nearby, worn, surplus campus that was formerly a middle school.
The campus was paid for with school-construction bonds approved by voters who live within the boundaries of Compton Unified.
The new campus replaces a creaky, 1930s-era school with a dignified facade and bell tower. But band director Anthony Ransfer remembers that every item of value inside had to be shifted when it rained because of leaks.
Former Compton school board member Charles Davis, who attended Thursday's ribbon-cutting, said he welcomed the new campus but wished the bell tower had been saved. However, officials opted to raze the old school in its entirety to make room for the new, avoiding costly conservation work.
"While we cherish those memories, we also know sometimes, to move forward, we must make tough choices," said school board member Satra Zurita. "The truth is, as much as we loved the old school, it simply wasn't serving our students the way they deserved."
Until Thursday, student MyShay Causey's only high school experience was at the former middle school.
"As someone who's finally seen the inside, there isn't much more I could have asked for," said MyShay, the school's student representative to the Board of Education. "Instead of squishing together on a tiny stage, we'll get to shine in our very own theater, and our home sports will actually be at our home."
MyShay, a graduating senior, added with a laugh that she was "super jealous" that she wouldn't get to attend class here.
But, she said, "this campus is not only a culmination of years of our community's vision ... it embodies our collective commitment to providing an environment where curiosity is nurtured, creativity is celebrated, and every student is empowered."
MyShay and other speakers captured the spirit of the education theory officials said was behind the construction: If you give students the best, they are likely to do better.
A top-notch campus alone does not produce academic achievement — and, conversely, a brilliant teacher and an assiduous student in a one-room schoolhouse can make for an upstanding education.
But the new Compton High is aimed at improving the odds for a student body with few resources — 93% of Compton students qualify for a free or reduced-price lunch because of low family income.
"The environment we've created here at Compton High School will launch scholars' potential," said school board member Ayanna Davis. "This is more than a campus. It's a launchpad."
It was lost on no one that this new campus is located in Compton — both notorious and celebrated as a birthplace of L.A. hip-hop culture.
Dr. Dre, the rapper, producer and music mogul, waited cheerfully through celebratory speeches before making brief remarks.
"I want to say this in front of everybody," he said. "It was not my idea for my head to be as big as that on the side of this building. ... But yeah ... I really appreciate it. Now, this is the type of building that I would have loved to go to when I was a kid growing up. Unfortunately, it wasn't here, but here it is now."
For 100 years or more, Compton has been home to the aspiring working class, evolving from a white to a Black and now majority Latino community that still maintains a strong Black presence.
Compton High's 1,600-person student body is 84% Latino, 15% Black and 1% Pacific Islander.
"There's something special about growing up here," Dr. Dre said. "It's a certain kind of grit that gets cultivated, navigating these streets, and that grit carried me farther than I could ever imagine."
The school district is putting the world on notice, said Supt. Darin Brawley.
"There are some of you ... you didn't go to school here for high school because you didn't think our high schools then were good enough to go to," Brawley told the outdoor audience of more than 300. "Fast forward to today, Compton is on the move. We are a shining beacon.
"Those of you that still talk about how bad Compton schools are, wake up and cease that narrative and start spreading the good word."
In terms of increasing test scores, data support Brawley's claims. Although there is much work to do, independent researchers have praised the school system of close to 17,000 students for showing significant, long-term academic improvement that is outpacing growth in California and the nation.
The school district has relied heavily on test preparation and test data analysis — an approach that critics say can stunt deep and broad learning. But the new school also showcases a district learning vision that is more nuanced and nurturing.
Jordan Ingram, an 11th-grader, found his motivation in band director Ransfer, who encouraged him to learn multiple musical instruments. Both were glowing as they took in the performing arts center.
Without music education, Jordan said, "I wouldn't be here. I wouldn't have the goals that I have. I maybe would have flunked out."
He has come to like the satisfaction of solving a math problem, even though it's hard. He plans to go to college and become a music teacher, though he also might start his own band along the way.
Over several years, Principal Larry Natividad has ramped up arts programs at the temporary campus so they will be ready to go in the fall.
The new school has a culinary classroom with professional-grade stoves, ovens and refrigeration.
Swimming coaches won't have to rely on stopwatches. Sensors in the wall of the pool will record when a swimmer completes a lap or race. The pool's mechanical room looks like the boiler room of an ocean liner — with giant tanks that purify pool water and another system that stabilizes the temperature.
The weight room is enormous, and there's an entirely separate fitness room with different equipment. A treatment room has ice machines to feed full-body ice baths.
The cafeteria is organized like a small college student union, with a chess-or-checkers table, foosball tables and pingpong.
Classrooms are set up with long electronic cables suspended from the ceiling — so power for a computer will never be far away even if chairs and tables are reconfigured.
The school also includes learning innovations that may raise eyebrows.
The library is meant to be noisy: It's a lounge-like area with no walls or doors that is bisected by the hallway that traverses the building. And there are no shelves or books — all volumes are digital.
Classrooms are organized like high-tech college lecture halls — no teacher has their own room. Instead, each teacher has a desk and a computer in a separate and small "collaboration" room.
The design also incorporates extensive natural light; doors are made of glass and adjacent to other panes of glass.
The look is in stark defiance of a proliferating security mentality in schools to stop active shooters. Many schools are "hardening the target," making it impossible to see inside rooms, limiting ground-floor windows, locking entry doors and reinforcing them with steel.
Compton High is relying instead on a secure campus perimeter, cameras throughout campus and facial recognition technology.
Principal Natividad is thinking big.
"Make no mistake," he said, recounting a pep talk he had with his students. "We will have a president of the United States coming from Compton. We will have a Supreme Court justice from the city of Compton. We will have various members in leadership to lead our great country, because we are great, and no one is going to tell us that we are not."
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This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
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