First in a series
Even though the shadowy spectre of the American Civil Liberties Union creates a measure of uncertainty reposing in the background, the glum of late spring and summer is about to be spectacularly vanquished at first bell on Tuesday morning on the new campus of completely made over Culver Park High School.
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Culver Park Principal Veronica Montes in a refurbished classroom
In mere days, the continuation school’s once dreary new parking lot base has been magically transformed into a sparkling technicolor delight.
Gone, and hopefully soon to be forgotten, is Culver Park’s traditional campus in Sunkist Park, replaced by a reupholstered, dramatically and tastefully revamped interior and exterior, an imposingly large portable building behind Farragut Elementary known as Bungalow 3.
More positively, it overlooks Ballona Creek.
The look of the campus this afternoon, unmistakably, was Under Construction.
However, by Tuesday morning, the conversion will be virtually complete, tables and umbrellas sprinkled about – creating a seaside atmosphere – distracting any notion that there is asphalt rather than grass underneath.
Surgery Worked
But even this afternoon, the Culver Park changeover flashed an enviable shine that suggested school officials diligently have worked to create in the past three hurry-up weeks.
If you can imagine a plain girl undergoing extreme plastic surgery, welcome to the glowing campus of Culver Park.
The look is not merely a facade that fades only to expose imperfections as an observer draws closer.
The surgery is authentic.
All four classrooms are bright, spacious and cleaner than Martha Stewart ever scrubbed or dreamed of being.
Out, Darned Spot
Facilities Manager Mike Corrigan and his crew are roaming the grounds this afternoon with cleansing tools and brushes in hand, as if they were preparing for Tuesday morning’s coming-out party, which they were.
Before these people are done, students from El Marino Language School, Culver Park’s longtime roommates, may want to move over here.
The Change
Like night turning into day, when Dave LaRose landed in Culver City a month ago tomorrow as the new Superintendent of the School District, the darkness that had enveloped the months’ long Culver Park forced-move crisis gradually began to lift.
There easily can be a temptation to oversell Mr. LaRose.
He is casual, soft-spoken, seems unassuming (but isn’t), and he has seized the reins of a drifting district just as his employers, the members of the School Board, hoped he would when they hired him two months ago virtually to the day.
(To be continued)
