Why Must Schools Be So Drab? They Don’t

When you walk into a hotel or restaurant, you know very quickly what kind of experience you’ll have. If the place is inviting, engaging, and clean, you’ll feel valued as a customer. If it is shabby and dirty, it says the owners don’t care about the people coming in the door.

The same goes for schools. The condition of many schools is frankly appalling. The paint is peeling off the walls, there’s no soap or toilet paper in the bathrooms, there’s litter on the floor. This tells the students the school doesn’t care about them enough to give them a decent place to go five days a week.

At Success Academy, we want school to be a place where children would want to come even if they didn’t have to, and that means creating inviting spaces that welcome them every day. The aesthetics of an environment have such a strong effect on perceptions and feelings that it is just common sense to want to give children a clean, comfortable place for learning. The message? We respect you and we expect you to respect our schools as well.

Many New York City public school buildings are very old, and though they’re structurally sound, their interiors can be very rundown-looking. So we give every new school a complete makeover, from fresh paint and new or repaired cabinetry to sound-absorbing carpet. We redo the window shades so natural sunlight shines through — very important! — and make sure every classroom door has a glass window so people walking by can always see in (though we keep our doors open at all times anyway).

We renovate our bathrooms — why do bathrooms in district schools have to be so awful? — and make sure they’re always stocked with soap, toilet paper, and paper towels. We install new, high-quality classroom furniture, air conditioners, and hooks for scholar coats and book bags. Each classroom gets a smartboard on the wall nearest the door, so anyone looking in can see what the class is working on.

The majority of our children come from socioeconomically disadvantaged communities; many live in shelters or temporary housing. For them, having access to a place created just for them with thought and care is huge. But those are only the basics. We want everything in the school to support teaching and learning.

In each classroom are 1,300 educational items, from math manipulatives to number lines to counting jars, and the children are surrounded by words, from our classroom libraries to word walls and examples of scholar writing, proudly displayed. Since all our scholars take science five days a week beginning in kindergarten, we have science rooms equipped with all the essentials for experiments — beakers, scales, magnets, thermometers, graduated cylinders — and a rotating menagerie of worms, crickets, snakes, and crayfish.

At the center of each classroom is a distinctive, brightly colored rug. These are covered with large dots and very comfortable to sit on, but they also serve a pedagogic purpose. The dots help the scholars find their places quickly, so they don’t waste time milling around. And since the dots are enclosed within a grid, they define the children’s personal space and help remind them to keep their hands to themselves.

Even our hallways are a learning opportunity. We put stickers on the floors with words and numbers, so the scholars can practice vocabulary or counting as they walk to lunch or to the main office. On the walls are more examples of scholar work, and there are framed photographs of the children all over.

In five months, we will open five new elementary schools and two more middle schools, and each of these new schools will be renovated and outfitted with the same design and attention to detail. With these additions, our schools will grow to a total of 41, serving 14,000 children, and when they come to school every day, they will walk into a house of learning where every structural component supports their academic success by design. We build each school with care, creating something that while not quite sacred, is very, very special.