Turlock Christian’s new campus gives kids a little wiggle room

Where Medic Alert office workers once typed in their cubicles, the next generation is learning in a next-century version of desks and chairs.

Flexible seating – standing, lying, pedaling, kneeling or leaning – and sleek, mobile tables and storage, have transformed the standard classroom at Turlock Christian School’s new elementary campus.

Principal Pam Hanson describes the airy, skylight-lit school as a cross between Disneyland and Starbucks.

“God’s really blessed us with this facility,” she said, standing in the lofty library space where a parent-made tree sculpture looms over piles of bolsters and fake-grass-covered mounds. The stacks face campfire-style circles for story time and cafe-style booths for friends to read together. A whiteboard invites students to scribble a prayer note for sick relatives, a brother in the Army or to cheer on the basketball team.

Above the bookshelves, a verse from Colossians proclaims: “Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord.”

Nods to faith fill the space just as surely as its judiciously cheery colors, chosen by two mothers who researched the furnishings and worked out the interior design. It took eight months to gut and remake the property, which opened to Turlock Christian’s 200 kindergarten through sixth-grade students in January.

Between their seven children, the longtime friends have seen the gamut of student study styles, from a natural who excelled anywhere, to a dyslexic, to a kid who could not sit still, Maria Swanson and Julie Vierra said. Neither is an interior designer. But, Vierra said, “We have good taste and we’re free.”

Both spent countless hours online, studying how the best schools seated the brightest students. Their virtual search led them to a manufacturers in New Zealand and Australia, and to Pinterest for details like making load-bearing, exposed columns look like No. 2 pencils. Flexible seating, the pair decided early on, was this century’s answer to the fast-changing educational landscape.

“The East Coast is going this route,” Swanson said. “The top schools, really in the nation, are using collaborative learning.”

Bolsters in a dozen shapes, many curved on one side for rocking, form the basic furniture building block. Desks follow suit, made in blunt-point triangles and quarter rounds to fit together or apart in endless combinations. High desks pair with upscale bar stools or bike pedals. Work tables flip up flat. Tall storage units fitted with dozens of trays give kids a mobile desk drawer and organize school supplies. Teachers get one for their supplies, flipped to the wall to display the whiteboard on the back.

“Everything has multiple uses. That’s the beauty of this,” Vierra said.

Every class has at least four seating options with extra seats among them to avoid conflicts, Swanson said.

Teachers expected all those choices to be a distraction, at least at first. But kids adjusted quickly, and two months in teachers report students seem to stay on task better.

Sixth-grader Lexi Gehrke said she finds it easier to work in the wiggle-friendly seating. “It helps a lot that way,” she said. “You want to move, but you couldn’t, but now you can.”

Classmate Sammi Swanson said being able to twitch a bit makes it easier to stay focused if she gets bored. “It gives me something to do to occupy my mind,” she said. “I think it makes my brain work a little more.”

Those results square with research on how kids learn, Hanson said. “Kids are highly engaged. Instead of getting in trouble for rocking in their chairs, they’re moving. Children developmentally need to be moving,” she said.

Teachers regularly change the classroom layout to match the lessons. Kids switch off seating throughout the day.

“We want to teach them how to choose their own learning environment, and they’re starting to figure it out,” Hanson said.

First-grade parent and school aide Heidi Visaraga said the flexible furniture especially helps in the squirmy years. “I think they do more (schoolwork), just because of the business that comes with being a little kid. They get to keep moving and work,” she said.

Third-grade teacher Kim Hamilton said students are collaborating more and staying on task more, crediting the seating options with helping that happen. “I had a student who brought in a ball to sit on. That ball really helped, and here every child has that type of option,” she said.

Teachers have also adjusted to a sleek, wheeled standing desk, giving up the classroom staple along with its chair.

It took parents pitching in and generous private donors to bring the vision to fruition, a $6 million to the studs renovation on top of the $4 million purchase price for the 6-acre property on the Emanuel Medical Center block in Turlock. The private, independent Christian school charges attendees $7,359 a year and gets no public funding.

The Medic Alert makeover included installing plumbing throughout, wiring and technology upgrades, and seen and unseen security measures. Wrought iron fencing surrounds the playground and the kindergarten yard, where a dozen or so tiny trikes line up against the sturdy black bars. Cellphone codes unlock reinforced exterior doors.

“Obviously, you can’t guard against every evil, but our security is top notch,” Swanson said.

The move to the new facility tops a year of adjustments for teachers, Hanson said. The shift to computers for kids and online English texts, a focus on more collaborative lessons, and passing WASC accreditation – all since August, Hanson said. The Western Association of Schools and Colleges, the main accrediting agency for public schools, gave the school a six-year accreditation nod, the longest available.

Teachers are just starting to take advantage of the school’s Mac lab, science lab and green screen filming studio, which will also be used by Turlock Christian High School students. The multipurpose room, with in-floor checkerboard and bean bag toss, also hosts school prayer assemblies, parent gatherings and, later this spring, high school prom.

“I want this facility to be used,” Hanson said. “The whole future is kids having to work in community.”

This story was originally published March 9, 2017 at 6:14 PM with the headline "Turlock Christian’s new campus gives kids a little wiggle room."