Rethinking the Learning Environment

Sponsored by East Baton Rouge Parish School System

Traditional classrooms with desks and chalkboards are changing and morphing into more collaborative learning spaces to better enhance the learning environment and EBR Parish School System is embracing those changes. With a school system that includes 47 elementary schools, 13 middle schools and 11 high schools, four alternative schools, and six district authorized type one charter schools that dates back to 1877, managing facilities can be a tough job as well. But it’s also a great opportunity to rejuvenate and rebuild when a facility becomes outdated. This becomes an occasion to enhance the educational space by adapting it for the current and future technological needs of the students. 

Most recently, Park Elementary found itself in a situation where the facility needed an upgrade. The plan, voted on unanimously by the School Board, was to tear the old building down and rebuild a better facility, thus allowing it to become a 21st century school. 

The new school is being built on a vacant spot on the 27-acre school property which allows the old school to operate throughout the construction phase. Construction is expected to be complete by August 2019, allowing students to start the 2019-2020 school year in the new facility. Park Elementary’s new facility design embraces a futuristic classroom concept that includes a series of small school houses where three classrooms will be clustered around one collaborative space allowing teachers to have some traditional classroom learning time, but adds the option to do more open-space collaborative learning.  This fosters a stronger educational community among both the teachers and students who will now have a shared learning space. 

“This collaborative space allows for flexibility between those learning spaces and function as a learning space itself,” Marcus Williams said. Williams is the program director with CSRS/Tillage Construction, which is the private partnership that oversees a large number of school construction projects in Baton Rouge. 

The rooms will feature mobile interactive whiteboards and movable furniture which will allow teachers to configure the space however they see fit for the day’s activity. 

Some other new facility upgrades include utilizing more natural light allowing their playground to double as an outdoor classroom that has garden and will capture rain water in a barrel to help create a tiny river as a nice water feature. 

Glen Oaks High School will also be receiving a major campus renovation soon that will involve constructing a new combination administrative-media center, a new commons building along with some additional classrooms, a cafeteria addition and renovations to the gym and auditorium with future plans for renovations to their athletic facilities. 

Lee High School is prime example of how the EBR School System is rethinking and reinventing the learning environment. The newly finished school consists of four buildings which include a common building with a cafeteria and a gym, as well as three identically built academies that have distinct themes: bioscience, digital and media arts, and engineering and robotics. Each of these academies have what they call “wow spaces” which are massive three-story atriums that are designed and intended for large projects. 

Baton Rouge High recently completed a large rejuvenation project which resulted in two black box theaters, allowing the students lots of space to express themselves creatively through dance, art and music. In addition, the chemistry and science labs have been updated and the school has a new media center. 

While these are just a few of the many facility-based projects in the works, EBR school system is working on maximizing the opportunities as they arise to modernize and upgrade the facilities that educate and train our students with the firm understanding that better schools, make better students which in turn make a better community that has a stronger future.