Not sure if this should go here, or just be in the Cincinnati Public Schools thread...if it ought to move, please feel free...

 

Anyway, Riverview East Academy held an Open House on Thursday, January 12th.  Grasscat had hoped to go but couldn't and PigBoy wanted to go but was too hurried in his last day in Ohio (which I trust will result in a photo thread!), so it ended up being a mini-UrbanOhio meet consisting of...me!  More like a nano-meet...

 

Anyway, Grasscat wins...my first impression was that it was semi trailers on stilts - looked like storage units or something.  Grasscat said it looked interesting, and after following the construction and now touring the facilities, he was right - it's really very cool.

 

First, some orienting - the red circle in the lower shot is where the building is located.  Actually, that's not quite accurate - the building is in the field immediately north-east of the circle.  Those trees are still there:

 

 

And a diagram, showing where things are.  This is unfortunately oriented with north to the bottom of the picture.  Anyway, here's the key:

 

Blue Circle: Common areas, including the "Cafetorium", music classrooms, after school programs, some community programs, the gymnasium, offices and library (er...sorry, "media center").

Red Circle: Classroom Suites (my term not theirs).

Green Square: This outlines a Classroom Suite (actually two, one per floor), which consists of four classrooms (Yellow Squares) surrounding one common area (Orange Square).  The common area contains play space, a sink and a bathroom for the young kids, and lockers and a bathroom for the older kids.  Also, there are big-ass TV's on the ceilings in all the common rooms, and in some of the classrooms.

Light Blue Line: Points to the Library.

Bright Green Line: Points to the main entrance.

 

 

 

Now, without further ado...approaching from the east:

 

Parking underneath the building:

 

Looking west - the Library is above, classrooms in the distance:

 

Classrooms - the ones facing the river:

 

Cafetorium:

 

One of the music rooms:

 

Gymnasium:

 

The Bengals donated a boatload of weightlifting equipment that will go up in the open area visible in the previous shot.  It's not there yet, but here's the view from that space:

 

Offices:

 

The Computer Lab (part of the Media Center):

 

The Spanish teacher, who was leading my tour, showing us the Library...they haven't unpacked the books yet!

 

Library, from the windows looking back:

 

An elementary classroom:

 

Elementary common area, and two other classrooms:

 

Sink, bathroom and TV...no more faking having to go to the bathroom then running around the hallways...

 

First floor hallway...it's not as dark as this shot makes it look - it was flash = dark or no flash = blurry...should have brought my tripod...

 

An older-kid common area - lockers, with the bathroom blocked from view:

 

The Spanish classroom:

 

There isn't a single chalkboard in the building (from what I was told, at least) - it's all whiteboards:

 

This was one of my questions - what the hell do you do during a tornado?  You get on the ground floor and you'll be outside!  He said the plan is to get in the first floor hallway...I'm sure the inspectors know what they're doing, but still, I hope we never have to test their best judgements here...anyway, here's the first and tornado plan:

 

The second floor connector hallway between the classroom suites and the main building:

 

Overlooking the main entrance area from the second floor hallway:

 

The art room:

 

Computers were everywhere...

 

Finally, here's a view out one of the portal windows from between the classroom suites...you can't see the river from the first floor, as far as I could tell, but you could from the second floor.  Probably not when the leaves are out, but for a large part of the school year you can...hard to get a shot in the dark, but in this you can see two lights from across the river reflected in the surface:

 

It's a great building, truly...always interesting, extremely well designed for teaching and for keeping track of kids...everything's open and light and airy, windows open, they've got technology, and all the staff and the kids were very nice and welcoming...I had a great time, and was very happy about how they're spending my money!

Thanks for the tour. It looks like CPS created an unique environment for the kids. Being so close to the river will stick with them for a lifetime.

Unique! I didn't realize there would be parking under the school, good use of space. I hope that doesn't become a big moneypit to maintain after a few years. I like the bright colors on the walls and (the entry?) floor, I can just see those test scores rising.

Cool pics, RV.  It looks like it was pretty well-attended.

 

What really struck me about watching its progress on the CPS facilities site was all of the bright, cheerful colors they used on the interiors.  When I went to school, it seemed like all of our walls were white or beige concrete block.

 

It looks like a pretty nice facility.

 

^Yeah, it was packed.  They've got parking under the main building, plus a large lot immediately east of the building, and when I got there at around 5:40 or so it looked like the mall on the Saturday before Christmas...I spent an hour there, by which time the parking lot had probably half emptied, but it was still awfully busy inside.  Very nice to see.

Also, its kind of funny that you use chalkboard and whiteboard in the same sentense. I've always noticed that people who say "chalkboard" call it a "dry erase board" and those who say "blackboard" refer to the other as a "whiteboard."

 

Something for the English page.