Renaissance Readies for Exit from Alma Real

As the school year winds down, Renaissance Academy remains engaged in a legal battle with the Los Angeles Unified School District in an attempt to secure a new campus. Meanwhile, parents and students have to weigh their options for the fall semester. School is scheduled to end on June 24. ‘We have not yet finalized our location for next year,’ Scott Adler, Renaissance board member and parent, said in an e-mail to the Palisadian-Post last Friday. ‘However, we continue to move forward on a couple of prospects and hopefully will be in mediation with LAUSD next month regarding a possible settlement. I am hopeful that we will obtain at least one Letter of Intent from a landlord next week.’ Renaissance filed a lawsuit against LAUSD last June when the District refused the charter’s request for space on an existing campus. Six months later, after moving into the 881 Alma Real building, the school filed suit against Village Real Estate (owner of the building) in an attempt to gain more use of its renovated 13,600 sq. ft. space. The battle between the school and building owners began last September, after Renaissance had been in session for only three days. Greg Schem, managing partner of the building, gave Renaissance a notice of termination of the lease effective June 2005. The two parties reached a settlement in February and dropped their lawsuits against each other, agreeing that Renaissance could remain in the building until the end of June. As part of the agreement, Renaissance, which has an enrollment of 320 students in grades 9 through 12, had the option to give back about half of its space on the first [ground-level] floor and to complete the build-out of about 1,000 sq. ft. on the terrace level (suite T-9), which was originally part of its premises. The school currently uses the completed T-9 space, which it divided into two rooms (production studios A and B), in addition to another terrace-level space (T-24). Renaissance also subleases certain blocks of time from the adjoining Kumon School. ‘With these four spaces we have been able to give back about half our space on the street [ground] level and no longer sublease rooms from Aldersgate [on Haverford],’ Adler said. According to Adler, Renaissance has at least three options for the fall. It has offers pending on two properties, including Glabman’s furniture building on Barrington, between Pico and Olympic, and another space on Bundy with about 20,000 square feet available. ‘Both locations are subject to conditional use permits so we’d have to get permission from the City,’ Adler said. ‘The third location has to remain confidential at this time.’ In an interview with the Post last Saturday, Renaissance parent Linzi Glass-Katz reflected on her daughter Jordan’s first year at the new school. ‘It’s been chaotic, a true test of strength for parents, teachers and [executive director] Paul [McGlothlin],’ she said. ‘The curve ball that we were thrown with the building threw us in the wrong direction, but there’s been a remarkable boomerang.’ Glass-Katz is referring to the turnaround in the last four months, during which a security guard was installed outside the Alma Real building, the school enforced the dress code and created enough space at the building so that students no longer have to attend classes off campus. ‘They’ve created somewhat of a sense of calm out of the chaos,’ said Glass-Katz, whose daughter is a sophomore. ‘I think the chaos got to some of the kids and parents’some students have left, parents have taken their kids out’but now it feels much more settled.’ She cited the ‘incredibly dedicated group of teachers’ as one of the reasons Jordan will be returning to Renaissance in the fall, and said she’s not worried that the school has not yet announced a location for next year since she believes that ‘the core of the school isn’t made up by the walls that hold it but the people inside it.’ Jordan added that the school feels ‘way more stable and way more comfortable’ since the students stopped attending classes at Aldersgate and have more set schedules. Tomorrow, Saturday and Sunday she will be performing in Renaissance’s first theatrical production, Neil Simon’s ‘The Odd Couple,’ at the Santa Monica Playhouse. She said she’s ‘not nervous really’ about where classes will be held in September ‘because we have such a dedicated staff. They trust us and give us freedom. They treat us like adults.’ However, Jordan did lose three teachers this year who her mother says have been replaced by ‘a younger group of talented teachers.’ Jordan explained that the students attend weekly Friday meetings with their advisors to discuss current events and what’s going on with the school. ‘The school’s really come a long way since the beginning,’ she said. ‘I had faith and confidence.’