Success Academy
Elementary Schools

Success Academy has redesigned its High School, Middle Schools, and now (finally!) the Elementary Schools.

While the preferred order of redesign might seem reversed (it might have started with the lower schools), it turns out that Elementary Schools have the most complex and demanding solutions of all the grades. In part this is about the separation from home and the first formal educational experience. Observations led us to recognize what all educators probably already know: the amount of information displayed in the Elementary Schools is simply overwhelming. The organization, display, flexibility, and personalization of the information is a demanding set of requirements. Add this to the tools for scholar discipline that the classroom needs in order to thrive and the task complexity increases exponentially.

Elementary Schools are the transition from home to the socialization of formal education. And the transition should, in our view, take place in a design that is fun, lively, and colorful, yet carefully engineered to allow the density and intensity of learning expected. Color is a tool for organization, from the ‘dot rugs’ (now integrated into the floor) and coat hooks to the preprinted information posters that attempt to take some of the pressure off teachers to create their own each year.

Color is an environmental tool as well. Wrapping classrooms in color is the design equivalent of a warm blanket, cozy and soft. Color is a way to ease the transition from home by creating an environment that exudes a sense of welcome, warmth and youth.

Functionally, the classrooms are designed to increase the performance required by the pedagogical methodology. Previously, instructors would simply run out of wall space and be forced to hang ‘clotheslines’ of information, or cover the windows with work sheets. The classrooms were simply not designed to handle the large quantities of information SA uses on a daily basis.

Our primary goal in the redesign was to radically increase the available wall surface for information display, and to employ strategies for the easy and orderly hanging and removal of information.

Standardization of repetitive elements of classroom instruction and discipline are now pre-printed, allowing individuation and customization but saving every teacher the enormous investment of time previously required.

Also observed was the inherently messiness of the seat sacks, the need for better lighting, better hallway organization (for movement of Scholars) and ease of hallway display, and we addressed all of these and more.

Seat sacks are gone, replaced by wire racks below each desk. The open design prevents unwelcome buildup of ‘stuff’ and visibility, as well as open air flow to prevent the growth of new forms of life!

The new hallways delineate hallway movement in a colorful and distinctive way. And the wall display tracks allow for large and changeable posters, artwork and other items. At every classroom door there is now a dedicated panel for the easy display of personalized information, Scholar names, themes and announcements.

Specialty classrooms are now distinctive in design, not just furniture or educational subject. Art rooms feature a multicolored floor and white gallery-like walls. The Science rooms feature a ‘night sky’ floor pattern. The Block rooms have a carpeted floor pattern that creates a ‘work canvas’ and a perimeter area outside the work. The Dance rooms, in addition to the large mirrors, have smooth floors with a white dance area and a perimeter area as well. Each room, even offices and bathrooms, includes elements of the colorful classrooms in an appropriate way; a high banner of color in offices and multicolor wall tile in stripes (not unlike the hallways) for the bathrooms.

The dot rugs are now integrated into the overall floor covering, eliminating a tripping hazard and allowing the replacement of stained areas without requiring a whole new rug. The coat hooks in each classroom are now color-coded to the dot rug, which allows more orderly movement from dots to hooks in an entirely intuitive way.

We are enormously proud of the new design, but also recognize that no design is perfect or permanent. It will evolve as we learn how the new classrooms are used, so that every part of the school day is improved, and every asset of the SA teaching protocol is reinforced, within a lively, colorful, and exciting new school environment.