Will Rogers Learning Community master plan

Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District | Santa Monica, CA

Will Rogers Elementary School master plan at completion and five implementation project phases

Will Rogers Elementary School master plan at completion and five implementation project phases

Area:

6.69 acres

Status:

Completed Dec 2020

Team:

PRINCIPALS:

Steve Johnson, Jim Favaro

PROJECT ARCHITECT:

Steve Johnson

ASSOCIATE PRINCIPAL:

Kathy Williams

DESIGN ASSOCIATE:

Ryan Ekstrom, Pengju Hou


Johnson Favaro has been commissioned by SMMUSD to master plan the Will Rogers Learning Community campus. After passing Bond Measure SMS, the District sought to modernize existing buildings, replace old portable buildings with new permanent structures and construct new facilities across campuses in order to transform their schools into 21st century learning environments. Johnson Favaro was engaged to collaborate with the District in this endeavor by assessing existing campus conditions and developing a master plan that will guide the elementary school campus through phases of transformation over the next 15 years.  

In early 2018, the District engaged a consultant to work collaboratively with the staff, parents, students and the communities of SMMUSD to prepare Education Specifications. In addition to describing the District’s educational goals, the SMMUSD Education Specifications explains the range of facility goals desired to facilitate project based, discovery, and collaborative approaches to teaching and learning that encourage individual and small group collaboration — a learning model that more closely aligns with today’s workforce needs. The master plan implemented designs that aligned with the latest teaching and learning models so that students are better equipped to develop skills for modern jobs later in life. The master plan identified the candidate first projects for SMMUSD Board of Education approval, which includes a new one-story early education/kindergarten building, field and playgrounds, STEM classrooms and courtyard, outdoor classrooms, modular food services, learning garden and parking lot, and north parking lot and front of school improvements.