By Ally Najera and Abby Carrillo
Granada Hills Charter (GHC), one of the largest charter schools in the nation, opened its TK-8 campus in August.
“We are off to a strong start here at Granada Hills Charter High TK-8 program! We opened with Transitional Kindergarten, Kindergarten, First Grade, and Sixth Grade and our first couple of weeks have gone well,” principal Jana Davenport said.
The school is off to a successful start in its first month for both students and staff.
Although GHC purchased the former Pinecrest Schools Northridge location in 2013, they broke ground on new construction this summer. The school plans to build a new three-story building consisting of 48 classrooms. They are also upgrading the kitchen, dining area, sports area, and parking lot.
“The teachers transformed the brand new, blank walls of their classrooms into warm and inviting learning environments and we welcomed 384 students onto our campus,” Davenport said.
GHC expects to see over 6,000 students attending both campuses by 2023. Through the implementation of new classes, the TK-8 program will focus on language, culture, communication, community involvement, and technology. For the communication standards, Mandarin and Spanish are among the languages that will be incorporated in the program. This is in response to the fact that when students are taught languages early on, they have a better grasp of the language into the future. For the technology standard, the plan is to supply each kindergartener with a chromebook in hopes that they will acquire useful technology skills.
The standards in which the students will be taught, have been personalized to make them feel comfortable in their latest school environment.
However, there have been minor inconveniences for the campus. Becoming accustomed to the new procedures of transitioning into a new environment has been a challenge in itself. Nevertheless, everyone has managed to get along fine and make things better everyday. Students have seemed to ease into the new changes of everything in a positive manner, similar to the way teachers have. In the process, teachers have made learning fun and engaging.
“I love my new school. On the first day of school, my teacher Ms. Lee was so nice and a lot of fun. She helped me make so many friends and has taught me so much in the first week of school,” kindergartener Nostalgia Gonzalez said.
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