Students at Turning Point Learning Center have $10,000 and a wealth of imagination available to turn their aging classrooms into surroundings that suit their purposes and preferences.
The $10,000 grant came from the Educational Services and Staff Development Association of Central Kansas in Hutchinson, which operates Turning Point for the Emporia school district.
The charter school has operated from the former Kansas Avenue School building since it opened in August 2005.
The old building was closed as an elementary school in 1973, though it has been used for Head Start, the alternative school, special education, and to house some Logan Avenue students while construction on the Logan building was being completed. New windows have been installed, as well as other maintenance and improvements, but the building looks much as it did when it closed, from the institutional off-white walls to the worn carpeting and squares of linoleum covering much of the classroom floors.
The school’s furniture is a mishmash of mismatched, second-hand folding tables and old chairs that were gathered from the school district or donated by the public to provide seats and writing surfaces for the students. Strips of tape delineate the halfway mark on a small table at the side of the room, so the two students sharing it know where their halves begin and end.
Edges of some of the tables have peeled away to show their pressed-wood innards, and bookcases are in short supply.
Still, the building holds the historic charm of another era, with its built-in, solid-wood cabinets with glass insets, and its ageless marble and wood staircases.
“I think Dr. Cook said, ‘The purse doesn’t match the shoes,’” director Ginger Lewman said, laughing at ESSDACK’s executive director Mike Cook’s description of the school.
Students have worked diligently for the past month to blend their taste for the modern with Kansas Avenue’s look of the past.
“We call it the ‘10K Project.’ We tried to come up with a name for it, but we were too busy,” she said.
Lewman, who is in charge of Turning Point’s face-to-face classes, said the youngsters are handling all of the designs and details for the project. They are operating like a real business, with Lewman as the chief executive officer, teacher Charlie Mahoney as the chief financial officer and students as managers and employers. There is also a board of directors, made up of Cook, Emporia Superintendent John Heim, and Principal Terry Fehrenbach and Kevin Honeycutt, both of ESSDACK.
Lewman has let the students know that their boss has bosses, too, and the work done has to be approved by the board. The 27 students at the school have been divided into five teams that are measuring, researching, designing, figuring budgets with costs of supplies and labor — with some donated by friends and parents — and documenting, filming, and preparing for their presentations at the end of the month.
Lewman and Mahoney chose five students as team leaders. Some were not obvious choices, she said; some were children staff believed had potential to be leaders but had not yet developed those skills. This project should push along that development, she said.
Lewman let the leaders choose whom they wanted on their teams, with a selection process that went beyond simply picking friends.
The children filled out resumes to apply for the jobs available. The team leaders gathered to choose workers they wanted and tried to consider personalities and strengths that would work best for the team as a whole, rather than individually. And, they assessed the skills as presented on the resumes.
“They had to learn to negotiate their teams,” Lewman said. “We spent a morning doing that, and then they got started.”
In the process, they learned more about the world of work, as did the students who had to winnow out their strengths and experiences, and condense them into a professional-looking format.
Students went online to look at Web sites showing virtual tours of the “10 Best Places to Work,” to see if anything could be adapted for their purposes.
“That’s where these kids’ sensibilities are — ‘Why can’t we do that?’” Lewman said. “… We’re trying to pick designers that fit us.”
They’ve used their math skills to measure and multiply areas to figure out how much paint they’ll need for the square footage involved, less the space occupied by windows; they’ve shopped online, by catalog and by phone at office-supply stores to check prices for the furniture they will need. If they need to look at the real item, they’ll be able to make field trips and try their hand at negotiating prices.
“Some kids were looking at IKEA because they like that modern look,” Lewman said.
Last week, students were busy contacting interior designers across the United States to see if any would be willing to give them tips on the subject. Some dismissed the children’s project out-of-hand, but one in Atlanta said he’d be happy to help and would let them use his discount from manufacturers to get the best prices possible.
With Internet and telephones, the distance between Atlanta and Emporia would not be a problem.
Introducing themselves on the telephone or in e-mails, dealing with professionals, and presenting ideas and proposals clearly will help them not only on this project, but with their own careers when they are adults.
“The kids are learning so much,” Lewman said.
Each team has one member assigned to document all of the work being done, including videotaping the conversations and brainstorming sessions.
The students have a virtual tour of the current building, complete with 360-degree views of each room, to use as an example of “before.” The “after” part of their presentation will be done through a computer program that allows them to build a room to scale, color its walls, put in furniture and flooring and arrange the rooms as they will be when complete.
During the work session, one of the students showed Lewman pictures of several tables that might be suitable for use in the classrooms, but the prices were wildly different.
“Get in there and take a look, and see why they cost more,” Lewman told him, guiding him toward information on construction and content.
Another group of students met with Emporia’s Assistant Superintendent for Finance, Rob Scheib, who had come over to talk with them about surplus items the district had available if they wanted to go to the storage area to look at them.
Eighth-grader Austin Elliott rushed into the classroom, smiling. He’d already had a successful conversation with the interior designer from Atlanta, and was optimistic about some other seeds he’d sown that day.
“God, today’s just my lucky day,” Austin said. “I don’t want to go to lunch.”
“We can have a working lunch,” Lewman responded. “We’ve done it before.”
Lunches are prepared and eaten in a room that doubles as the science room. It’s outfitted with five microwaves, a large refrigerator and a stove, plus work tables. Turning Point does not have access to the school district’s food services, so students bring their own lunches each day and do whatever food preparation is needed.
“It’s really disgusting to dissect a frog, and have those chemicals, then clean off the tables and have to eat there,” Lewman remarked.
There will not be a new lunch room as a result of the project; the space simply is not there for Turning Point to use. However, the lunch room is in line for improvements, too.
One of the boys pointed out that the hallways could be put to use, if the uses did not violate fire codes or city ordinances.
“I like it that you’re thinking that way because that is just dead space,” Lewman told him, asking for suggestions on ways the hallways could be used, but still remain open and safe in case of emergencies.
Team leaders, the CEO and the CFO hold executive meetings regularly for updates on progress and to get direction as needed for the upcoming phases.
Lewman and Mahoney meet with the full classes, too, to oversee the progress.
“Were you able to accomplish? Not just work. Accomplish,” she said, emphasizing the last word. “Are you moving ahead?”
The end-of-the-month deadline is galloping toward all of the teams, and some are further along in their work than others. She expects all of them to be finished when the time comes to show their completed project videos to the board of directors.
“And the kids have to present it,” Lewman said. “It’s not my project.”
The board will choose the plan it prefers, or may choose a combination of two or more; the choice will be up to them.
“And if we do a bad job presenting, they might not give us a cent,” Lewman said.
If that should happen, it won’t be from lack of effort on anyone’s part. The students are driven by enthusiasm for the project, and for the prospect of studying in updated classrooms with updated furnishings.
On Friday, after a few hours of intense work among all of the teams, Lewman suggested taking a little time off from the project.
“We’re going to take a little mental break and do an hour of advanced math,” Lewman told them. “Then we’ll go back to the project.”