ABSTRACT
See if you recognize this school. It is an enormous new-looking building, perhaps a mere decade old. Its length seems to take up an entire block. At its center is a circle drive large enough to accommodate 20 sitting buses at the start and end of each school day. The exterior consists of sand-colored brick with narrow windows that look dark from the outside. There is a substantial play area in the back of the building, though neighbors can’t tell you the last time they saw students playing in this area during the school day. A large parking lot on one end of the building contains the cars of roughly 80 percent of the faculty and staff. The rest must find spaces on the streets nearby. A few more than 800 schoolchildren, kindergarten through grade eight, enter this building Monday through Friday, nine months a year.
