Smooth Flow of Students and Traffic as Renaissance Opens Its Doors

After weeks of negotiating community traffic and safety concerns, and acquiring a temporary certificate of occupancy only last Friday, Renaissance Academy Charter High School opened its doors Monday morning. While freshmen reported to the main campus, located in the lower level of the 881 Alma Real building, 10th-12th graders congregated in organized groups at two picnic areas in the nearby Palisades Recreation Center. Asked how he felt at the end of the first day, the school’s founding director Paul McGlothlin said, ‘I felt like it was one week, but I was happy and very pleased that it was so positive. [At Renaissance] I see Palisades parents at their best.’ Several parent volunteers lined Alma Real, between La Cruz and Ocampo, directing students and monitoring drop-offs with orange and yellow poster board signs. ‘Welcome RA Students, No Drop-Off’ read Shelly Fariello’s sign. She’s president of the PTSA, and her daughter, Carly, is a freshman at the school. Students were instructed to use crosswalks and to enter the school by following the walkway (adjacent to the parking lot driveway) on the left side of the building and taking the stairs to the lower-level entrance. They were also told not to go through the lobby, where administrative and counseling offices have been built. As advised, parents dropped their teenagers off on Swarthmore, between La Cruz and Bowdoin along the back side of Palisades Elementary School, and one teacher commented that ‘it was really smooth, no congestion at all.’ On Tuesday, about 20 students from Topanga and 23 from West L.A. arrived by bus, but the school is expecting more students from both locations. Renaissance will pay $100,000 to lease the buses this school year, according to Kathy Hartman, a Brentwood resident whose son, Teddy, is a freshman at Renaissance. Hartman’s other son is a sophomore at Palisades High School. ‘I’ve told the Village School and Pali Elementary principals, ‘If you have a complaint, I want to hear from you,” said Hartman, who was also hoping to meet with Sister Patricia McGahan at Corpus Christi, a third school in the immediate vicinity. ‘We’re going to work the kinks out. We’re warning the students about driving to school; if they have to drive, they must rent space in parking lots. The bus pass is $475 for the year, and if students can’t afford it, [PTSA] parents will provide financial help.’ ‘Parents are critical to a smooth operation,’ said RA parent Joe Sheppard, the manager of Camp Josepho in Rustic Canyon, who helped with organization on the first day of school. Sheppard also supplied the radios and caution vests used by parent volunteers and staff, and said he had been helping with last-minute classroom preparations until about 9 p.m. Sunday night. While six of the eight rooms built this summer were clean and furnished with tables and chairs on Monday morning, freshmen initially met and sat on the hardwood floor of the large common space connecting the rooms. Four rooms will serve as traditional classrooms and the rest will function as science/art spaces, including a recording studio. The lower level of the school also includes a women’s and a men’s bathroom, each with three stalls, and two one-room unisex bathrooms. Meanwhile, about 150 sophomores, juniors and seniors headed to the park, where RA had rented the lower and upper picnic areas both Monday and Tuesday. ‘The first week is a balance between actual classes and fixing schedules,’ McGlothlin said. ‘We also need to train the students to know where they’re supposed to go. We don’t have our classrooms configured the way we want, and we’re moving the administration offices from Sunset/PCH up here. McGlothlin said that the school is planning to hold core classes (possibilities include English, math and history) at some unspecified off-campus locations, which ‘in the next couple of weeks will account (Continued on Page 3) for 50 percent of our capacity, once we have the contracts worked out.’ However, McGlothlin added that the community has brought ‘an amazing amount of pressure to the park and library [to not allow the school to use their facilities].’ Park director David Gadelha said the school ‘has talked to us about taking permits out to use our facilities’ but that his department will be meeting with McGlothlin to discuss some concerns before issuing these permits. ‘We’ve received a lot of complaints, and before we issue a permit we want to make sure the school’s activities comply with our department’s regulations,’ Gadelha said. Some of the concerns, mainly from park users with small children and neighborhood residents, include large groups of students eating lunch in the park every day, classes being held on the open grass areas and the impact on parking in the Rec Center’s lot. (The school has rented about 27 spaces in the Alma real building for its entire teaching and administrative staff.) Renaissance also hopes to have its theater arts students use Pierson Playhouse (Haverford at Temescal Canyon Road) every Tuesday and Thursday morning, but no contract or lease has been signed, according to Eva Holberg, vice president of administration for Theatre Palisades’ executive board (the Pierson Playhouse landlord). ‘We are still looking into the legal ramifications,’ Holberg said. The school does have an agreement with JIVA Yoga Studio on Sunset, where students in all grades will be able to take yoga classes at specific times Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday afternoons, according to head yoga instructor William Asad. Last Friday, about 100 RA students in grades 10, 11 and 12 were bused to Santa Monica College, where they are taking college-level electives through the dual-enrollment program. These courses are held Fridays at SMC’s Academy of Entertainment and Technology, located at 1660 Stewart St. in Santa Monica. ‘We’re excited about our relationship with Renaissance,’ said Katharine Muller, Dean of the Academy of Entertainment and Technology. ‘We will be delivering classes to [RA] students in grades 11-12, and some 10th graders.’ The five electives SMC is offering include photography, animation, interactive design, graphic arts, and video production and editing. Not only will the students be able to earn college credit with these classes, but ‘they will get the feel of a college campus,’ Muller said. In addition to enrichment classes, one of Renaissance Academy’s projects during this first year will be for students, faculty and parents to write a school constitution, said McGlothlin. ‘The teachers who founded the school are the founding teachers, and the first year students have the status of founding students.’ The school is closed Thursday for Rosh Hashanah.