This spring, West Creek Academy welcomed students into its new two-story classroom building.
“It’s made to house classrooms, as well as labs,” Principal Susan Bett said. “Currently, we have four second-grade classrooms in the building and a voice lab, a drumming lab, a keyboarding lab and a science lab.”
The Saugus Union School District began construction on the new building nearly a year ago in March 2017. During the interim, the school’s second grade classrooms were housed in temporary portables because the campus did not have room for them, according to Bett.
When the new building opened Feb. 20, the school was able to welcome second grade students and teachers into the new facility and host more arts and sciences programs on campus.
“I feel like it has fostered collaboration among our second grade teachers in the classroom with the layout,” Bett said. “It’s also helped us celebrate the arts by having music and the arts back at our school.”
With the new building, students of all ages are able to take keyboarding, drumming and voice classes from California institute of the Arts (CalArts) faculty, students and alumni.
“CalArts has been in partnership with West Creek Academy since it opened so the keyboarding, drumming and voice classes are led by CalArts,” Bett said. “James Waterman, the arts integration specialist for the CalArts Community Arts Partnership, leads it all.”
Students are also able to take drumming classes from an instructor from Ghana in the school’s new drumming lab.
“They’re drums from Ghana and we have an instructor from Ghana whose been teaching our students,” Bett said. “Without the building we wouldn’t have had that.”
The two-story classroom building also allowed West Creek to open a science lab, which can be used for lessons that incorporate the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS).
“Our students are able to engage in hands-on science and we can even put a few classrooms together in our science classroom to foster collaboration,” Bett said.
On Tuesday, West Creek plans to celebrate the new classroom building with a ribbon-cutting ceremony on campus. The ceremony will be a time for the school’s staff, students and PTA and the Saugus district’s employees to officially dedicate the two-story classroom building.
“During the ribbon cutting, we’ll showcase some drumming, some keyboarding,” Bett said. “Our students will sing our songs and our second grade students will lead them.”
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