Balancing the history of Santa Monica with the educational needs of the present was a needed compromise for one local elementary school.
At the Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District Board of Education meeting on Dec. 12, Chief Operations Officer Carey Upton presented the board with the Roosevelt Elementary Campus Plan. The remaking of the campus includes the construction of a new auditorium, new Transitional Kindergarten/Kindergarten spaces, a new library and a new Maker Space & Teaming Area; among other additions.
The campus plan required the adoption of an Environmental Impact Report (EIR) and an adoption of mitigation monitoring and reporting and statement of overriding considerations; mainly due to “significant and unavoidable impacts” when it comes to cultural resources, also known as the campus’ Historic District. The board approved of the campus plan during the meeting.
Analysis of the campus found that there was historic significance to Roosevelt, eligible for both listing in the California Register of Historic Resources and as a local Santa Monica landmark. The significance comes from the innovative “Santa Monica Plan,” which rebuilt the campus after the 1933 Long Beach Earthquake and set national precedent on functional teaching spaces, child-centered buildings and plentiful outdoor spaces.
“Moving from this sort of interior-focused, multi-story, monolithic kind of schools which were very prevalent prior, to this much more open, single-story, using the outdoors (and) utilizing lots of natural light (at Roosevelt), which became the Santa Monica Plan, was extremely influential nationally,” Historic Resources Group Managing Principal Paul Travis said.
The Roosevelt plan would take down some contributors to the campus’ local district, prompting the EIR with an alternative that preserves the majority of the district. Travis added that what’s going to be preserved is “quite meaningful in conveying the significance of the property,” and will continue to communicate the importance of the Santa Monica Plan.
SMMUSD officials worked with the Santa Monica Conservancy to protect as much historic resource as possible, with the organization eventually endorsing the approval of the plan. Conservancy Executive Director Kaitlin Drisko added that the plan will “reveal and celebrate a meaningful part of the history of Santa Monica and school building design.”
The tenants of the Santa Monica Plan will be in place on the updated Roosevelt campus, as Architect James O’Connor explained that the new complex will utilize the “great asset” of the school’s South Court. He explained that the Court will be repurposed for outdoor learning spaces, similar to what it was used for in the 1930s and 1940s.
Phase 1 of the plan, which was funded by November’s passage of Measure QS and is expected to commence construction in June 2025, will also include outdoor learning canopies for Kindergarten students. Both kindergarten and TK students are a major focus of Phase 1, part of an overall plan to expand TK/K classrooms to 1,350 square feet in size.
SMMUSD Board Vice President Jon Kean said he has been talking with other educational leaders about TK’s rise since the 2000s, when it was called Pre-K, and that this approved campus plan is 20 years in the making.
“I think this is a way to respect the neighborhood, it’s a way to respect the history of the campus, which is not insignificant, and I think it’s a way to maximize what is a very, very tight floor plan,” Kean said. “I think it answers the questions that we challenged (the operations team on), and I think it does it in a very elegant way.”
