Shakopee High students prepare for 'culture shock'

The new Shakopee High School opens Wednesday as a model of the high school of today.

There's lots of lab space and huge work bays for carpentry, metalwork and an auto shop.

The school is separated into different "pods," where students take most of their classes, building a sense of small learning communities and reducing congestion and long jaunts to the next class. Muted earth-tone colors are meant to relax students.

"It's so different from the old high school," said 17-year-old Shakopee senior Erica Migliori of her new school. "We actually have windows. You can actually see what the weather's like. It's very open. In our other high school, there didn't seem to be a flow. Now, because it's so big and open, you can see where you are."

At least three other high schools are under construction in the metro area, and they have come a long way from those that often featured windowless, cramped, antiseptic classrooms, separate cafeterias, and long, carpeted hallways.

Nowadays, windows and natural light are important, as much for keeping lighting costs down as for improving the learning environment. Carpet is out because of its mold-spawning capabilities. And in the wake of school shootings, new schools are likely to feature not only fewer entrances but also controls to allow wings to be locked down.

In Shakopee, students, parents and teachers were given a say about what should be in the new school.

"I think a lot of people can show ownership here," said Principal Jim Murphy, standing in the large cafeteria/meeting space that forms the central core of the new school. "'Here's something we asked for and it exists.'"

Other area schools under construction include Chanhassen High School, East Ridge High School in Woodbury and Farmington High School. All are set to open in the fall of 2009.

None is meant to be huge. The largest two, Farmington and Chanhassen, are being built to hold 2,000 students, about average for Twin Cities high schools.

Shared space

New schools also have bigger and better auditoriums and fitness centers, because they're often shared with the community, said Judy Marks, associate director of the U.S. Department of Education's National Clearinghouse for Educational Facilities in Washington, D.C.

In part, that's because it's a lot easier to get voters to approve tax referendums if they know they will be able to share the facilities. At Shakopee High, for instance, the new auditorium seats more than 800 people, compared with 600 -- "if you really pushed it" -- in the old auditorium, said Superintendent Jon McBroom. So state-of-the-art is the new facility that the orchestra pit has an elevator and telephone.

"We invested some extra dollars to make this a community facility," McBroom said. That could include a budding Shakopee community theater, said Judi Tomczik, coordinator of the school's gifted and talented program and a participant in the school design process.

Although mostly pleased with the way the school turned out, Tomczik noted that you can't always get everything you want. Teachers' lounges, for instance, are small and unappealing. And because of the small learning pods, there are no centralized departments for specific subjects.

Craig Pearson, a Shakopee parent who worked on the school design committee, would have liked an athletic field house that residents could join, like a health club. That didn't make the final cut. But Pearson likes the plan for a cafeteria/common area that can double as a gathering space for "intermission when there are plays, or at halftime during sporting events, and which can be used for banquets for community functions."

High-tech learning

Technology is crucial in the up-to-date high school.

"People ask me to put in all the technology needed for the next 20 years," said architect Paul Youngquist, who is designing the new East Ridge school for the South Washington County district. "That's impossible."

At a cost of $54 million, approved by Shakopee voters in 2004, the new Shakopee High boasts plenty of technology. It has eight computer labs, a TV production studio, nine science labs, computerized architectural drafting stations and projectors suspended from ceilings so that teachers can flash images from their computers onto screens in the front of their classrooms.

"We decided we wanted to have the most up-to-date technology we could afford for the teachers and students," said McBroom.

The generous space and equipment allocated to the wood shop and metal shop reflect the new emphasis on science and technology, and the nationwide move toward stressing technical and engineering skills in school. For their big project, Shakopee High technical students will actually build a house.

"I think it's going to be a culture shock for us to go there," student Migliori said. "Some of the kids in my grade had parents who went to that [old] high school."

Norman Draper • 612-673-4547

Norman Draper • ndraper@startribune.com