This new campus will be a welcoming, community-oriented place for learning and gathering. It reflects AESD’s extensive, forward-thinking Educational Specifications and their Distinguished Practices which relate their commitment to educating the whole child.

Learning Environment- The underlying design concept is to provide flexible, connected, and adaptable spaces that can accommodate a variety of multiple learning modalities simultaneously from one-on-one learning to large group collaborative activities. The learning spaces are designed to foster collaboration and exploration both for the students and the teachers facilitating learning.

Ample transparency between learning studios, learning commons and the Learning and Gathering Courtyard will empower teachers to facilitate learning to nurture students to own their learning and become expert learners. All the studios open onto a commons with glazed roll-up doors to extend the footprint. A ‘pod’ in each commons provides space for teachers to collaborate and communicate more fluidly to help each other help their students.

Design- The vision of the new Roosevelt Elementary School is to create a transparent and welcoming campus while providing a safe and secure environment for students. The school is adjacent to Boysen Park named after Charles R. Boysen, a California horticulturist who created the boysenberry, a hybrid of three berries. His invention became the inspiration to create identities for the four different outdoor learning areas. The largest outdoor learning area is named Boysenberry with the smaller ones named after the berry varieties that are part of the hybrid: Raspberry, Loganberry, and Blackberry as an inspiration for students to continue developing their creativity, curiosity, and imagination.

Community Environment- When a visitor arrives at the new school, the environment is welcoming and the learning occurring is explicit. The Research and Innovation Center (RIC) located directly above the administration lobby gives parents and visitors a glimpse of the learning activities happening in the RIC, as students research, design, and create projects that illustrate their learning.

Security vulnerabilities are addressed by having a new two-story school entirely enclosing a large central Learning and Gathering Courtyard. This space will be used for the daily morning rituals and the needs of the Visual and Performing Arts program which supports the arts as a critical and integrated part of their curriculum. The buildings themselves will provide the security instead of fences to create a welcoming, non-institutional environment. From the street, passersby can see vibrant colors in some of the spaces, contributing pleasing aesthetics to the neighborhood in different layers. A main entry is adjacent to the student drop-off and administration offices.