It’s the sixth day of school and students at Voices College-Bound Language Academy are already at ease with their new surroundings. Mostly Latino students, donning the school’s trademark yellow-and-purple collared shirts tucked into their khakis, walk through the halls of the Jarvis Drive facility in an orderly, disciplined manner.
It’s the “Si Se Puede” (translation: Yes, it is possible) way that all Voices students adopt as their own. As they pass Principal Juan Carlos Villasenor, some smile and wave. The principal, in turn, offers words of encouragement in Spanish.
The third-year Morgan Hill charter school began the 2017-18 academic year at a new site, moving from their makeshift beginnings at Advent Lutheran Church to the former Silicon Valley Flex Academy, a much larger, two-story space that previously housed students from a different charter school provider.
“We’re excited, because the parents fought all year to get us here,” said Villasenor, who has been the Morgan Hill site leader since its inception in the 2015-16 school year. “For me, it was the biggest worry where we were going to be to start this year.” Voices, which has two other charter schools (the flagship within the Franklin McKinley School District and the other in Mount Pleasant), made due with the somewhat cramped but serviceable space on the grounds of Advent Lutheran for the first two years. However, by adding a grade level each year, they had outgrown the facility.
Voices officials were granted a Conditional Use Permit through the City of Morgan Hill, and will be at the Jarvis Drive location for at least four years. Villasenor said they found out about the approval of their new location the second to last week of last school year in June.
“It was a big relief. We’re all very happy and very excited,” said Villasenor, who was just as grateful to the church leaders for allowing them the space the last two years as to the city officials for allowing them to enter a four-year lease at the new location. “The parents are very excited to make it their home. Families have been super engaged since the very beginning. This definitely feels more like their school.”
For the current school year, Voices has two transitional kindergarten/kindergarten combo classes and two first-grade classes—situated on the ground floor—as well as two second-grade classrooms and one third-grade class on the upper floor. They also have a reading intervention room and a special education room. Altogether, Voices has 187 students, including about 15 with some sort of special needs accommodation.
“Space is not an issue. We can really make our academic program look the way it should,” said the principal during an interview in the spacious main foyer that has a reception desk, common area and a vaulted ceiling up to the second floor. “Now, we have to figure out the best way to effectively use it.”
Not allowed to have an outdoor recess area under the CUP, Voices staff got creative and used one of the large first-floor rooms as an indoor playground complete with a rock climbing wall, basketball hoops, tricycles and an arts-and-crafts area. The new play area, especially the wall, is a big draw among students, including seven-year-old classmates, Aaron Olalde and Lobby Marin, both second graders in teacher Ricardo Martin’s class.
“My favorite part is when we go to recess because there’s a lot of kids to play with,” said Marin, who, along with Olalde, has been attending Voices since kindergarten.
The same goes for their teacher, Ricardo Martin, who is also taking full advantage of a more spacious classroom with a target reading lab positioned in one corner area that was not a possibility at the last site.
“I love it,” said Martin, one of four returning teachers this school year with three new instructors. “It’s definitely a huge difference from what I had last year….We just have a lot more space. My old classroom was half the size of this one.”
Over the first six days of school, his students are learning their new routines and procedures whether it be rotations within the classroom or lining up and walking downstairs for lunch and recess.
“They’ve been doing a really good job with it,” Martin said.
Voices’ dual immersion program allows for a 60-40 split Spanish-to-English instruction at the second grade level. That jumps to 50-50 by third grade, according to Martin.
Hed: Charter renewal on the horizon
The Morgan Hill school is in the final year of its three-year charter petition authorized through the Santa Clara County Office of Education. School officials must go before the county board for renewal in the coming months. While serving local students, Voices is not part of Morgan Hill Unified School District since the local school board rejected Voices’ petition.
“We’re preparing for that,” said Villasenor of the upcoming petition renewal process. “We feel really good about it and are just getting ready for it.”
The new, larger facility certainly strengthens their case.
First grade teacher Eduardo Santiago, in his second year at Voices, said staff is still trying to figure out the most effective ways to utilize their added space.
“The facilities here are amazing…It has been a smooth transition,” Santiago added. “The kids really deserve a place like this. Now they have more freedom to learn and express what they’ve learned.”
Fellow first grade teacher Maritza Gonzalez is in her first year with Voices after working with Cal-SOAP, a statewide outreach program designed to increase the number of students attending college. It focuses on students from low-income families who may be the first in their families to attend college.
“The values here at Voices are very similar to when I was working with Cal-SOAP,” said Santiago, who had one corner of her partitioned classroom decorated with the University of Arizona logo. “I tell them to always shoot for something bigger (in life).”
