Logan Memorial Educational Campus: A New Era for Education in Logan Heights

In a transformative move to address the achievement gap for underserved students, San Diego Unified has invested in the historically Hispanic neighborhood of Logan Heights with the construction of the Logan Memorial Educational Campus, known as LMEC. This state-of-the-art educational complex represents a significant commitment to the community and its future.

Background and Need for Change

In 2019, Logan K-8 and Memorial Preparatory School were designated as two of the lowest-performing schools in California. These schools were closed and replaced with state-of-the-art structures. The closure of Logan K-8 and Memorial Preparatory School paved the way for a new vision of education in Logan Heights. The community recognized the need for updated facilities and a new approach to instruction to close the achievement gap.

A Comprehensive Educational Solution

About $180 million in taxpayer-funded bond money was used to demolish two former schools on the city block between Ocean View Boulevard and Logan Avenue. LMEC is designed to close that achievement gap and keep more children from leaving to find better education in other parts of the county. The resulting master plan retains the TK-8 component and transforms the site into a single comprehensive TK-12 campus. It also houses the first high school in Logan Heights’ history, making it a true neighborhood school.

LMEC is a walkable neighborhood learning center with student-focused environments that support hands-on activities, teamwork, critical-thinking, and problem-solving skills for learners of all ages. Scattered across campus are maker spaces and design labs with 3D printers, laser cutters, and equipment to prototype and create manufactured work. At the TK-8 Montessori school, students learn and explore at their own pace to become critical thinkers. The new 9-12 school features career pathways in health sciences and design engineering which come together at the center of the building in a large, tiered collaboration space.

The campus integrates and engages with the surrounding community through on-site facilities including a childhood development center, preschool, wellness center, externally run health clinic, community rooms, and joint use of the local City branch library and community center.

Read also: Shaping the Future of Logan Elm

The Vision and Design of LMEC

The design is ultimately influenced by the community. Building forms that are simple, bold and influenced by Mexican modernism result in architecture that fits the neighborhood and builds on the rich cultural history of the area. Master plan stakeholders, including many who live in the neighborhood, partnered with the design team in reviewing existing site conditions, adjacent land uses, traffic patterns, projected enrollments, budget, and schedule. The new campus successfully integrates a high school and curriculum into the Logan Heights neighborhood where one has been lacking for many years. An art master plan integrates murals, signage, and ornamental metal works into the design.

LMEC serves transitional kindergarten through grade 12. The design reimagines the existing K-8 campus and adds a new child development center and the community’s first high school.

Community Involvement and Design Principles

Over the years, community members had instilled a sense of great pride in their neighborhood school and wanted its rich culture to be preserved in the new design. The design solution is a result of seven public meetings that brought together teachers, administrators, and the community. With an open and transparent process, the resulting master plan retains the TK-8 component and transforms the site into a single comprehensive TK-12 educational campus.

The design is ultimately influenced by the community. Master plan stakeholders, including many who live in the neighborhood, partnered with the design team in reviewing existing site conditions, adjacent land uses, traffic patterns, projected enrollments, budget, and schedule.

Academic Concepts and Career Pathways

The school predominately serves socioeconomically disadvantaged students and has historically underperformed academically. There was a need to provide updated facilities in this community to become more equitable within the district, but more importantly change was needed academically in the programs and teaching methodologies to close the achievement gap.

Read also: The Story of Logan Loya

The campus has two career pathways, health sciences and design and engineering, resulting from the master plan meetings held with the community. As a public Montessori school, the TK-8 campus puts students at the center of learning. Montessori focuses on the whole student including social, emotional, intellectual, and physical development. Students learn and explore at their own pace to become critical thinkers. Additionally, the TK-8 campus offers classes that integrate with career pathways at the high school located on the same site. The learning commons is adjacent to two STEM spaces, resulting in a vibrant environment where young students create, research, think, and present to their peers.

The 9-12 school features career pathways in health sciences and design engineering, areas of exploration defined in partnership with community members during the planning phase. The two programs come together at the center of the building in a large, tiered collaboration space that accommodates group presentations and is a social area for students before and after class. Throughout the entire campus are maker spaces and design labs with 3D printers, laser cutters, and other equipment to prototype and create manufactured work.

Montessori Education at LMEC

LMEC teachers are using the Montessori method exclusively in the elementary school, starting with a mixed preschool class of 3-, 4- and 5-year-olds. Montessori education encourages student independence and creativity with more hands-on learning. The method uses teachers more as guides in the classroom instead of just lecturers. San Diego Unified plans to continue Montessori principles in the new high school using the district’s own curriculum.

As a public Montessori school, the TK-8 campus puts students at the center of learning. Montessori focuses on the whole student including social, emotional, intellectual, and physical development. Students learn and explore at their own pace to become critical thinkers.

Community Environment and Support Services

This campus is a neighborhood learning center, engaging parents, and community volunteers in the educational process. The campus integrates with the surrounding community through on-site facilities, services and program offerings including an externally operated health clinic, wellness center and a community room.

The Wellness Center is a family resource center, where coordinated district and community support services are accessible and customized to fit the needs of the neighborhood. The clinic facility, which is linked closely to community agencies and the school, includes exam rooms and offers childcare and pediatric and adolescent medicine.

This campus is a walkable neighborhood center with accessible and securable joint use spaces. The campus has a single point of entry, great sightlines from the surrounding streets into public areas, and strategic placement of facilities that the public can use. A strong connection between indoor and outdoor spaces is accomplished by using easy to operate sliding and sectional glass doors which connect the interiors to sheltered and shaded outdoor areas.

Sustainability and High-Performance Design

Sustainability was a key factor in design decisions regarding the creation of learning environments. Three of the existing buildings were salvaged, adapted to new uses, and structurally upgraded. Offsetting the need for new steel and concrete in these buildings resulting in a reduced carbon footprint. By being CHPS designed (Collaborative of High Performing Schools), the project focuses on student wellbeing through optimal indoor environmental quality, natural ventilation, use of low emitting materials, high acoustical performing learning environments, access to daylight, and glare reduction throughout. Building systems and materials focus on minimizing material, water, and energy use.

The project is Collaborative for High Performance Schools-designed, a program aimed to reduce energy consumption in California’s K-12 educational facilities. The design focuses on student wellbeing. High performance attributes for the campus include natural ventilation, and materials that promote energy and water efficiency, maximize the use of natural lighting, improve indoor air quality, utilize recycled materials, and create acoustical conditions conducive to optimal learning environments. Building systems and materials focus on minimizing material, water, and energy use.

Anticipated Impact and Community Expectations

LMEC is designed to close that achievement gap and keep more children from leaving to find better education in other parts of the county. There are high expectations that LMEC will eventually stop the flow of parents sending their children to other schools they believe are better for their education.

The new campus successfully integrates a high school and curriculum into the Logan Heights neighborhood where one has been lacking for many years. Logan Memorial Educational Campus offers students something previously missing from their educational journey - a high school in their local neighborhood.

Voices from the Community

Hector Robles, 14, attended Memorial Prep for two years. He will now be part of the LMEC Class of 2026. “I feel excited to be a freshman,” he said, “to be the first graduate of a high school and to be the first in this high school they’re building.”

Serafin Paredes, the LMEC band instructor, previously taught music at Memorial Prep for eight years and decided to stay and help build what he hopes will become an award-winning school. “We’re hoping to be able to have a mariachi program, a band, and orchestra,” he said. “Hopefully, we’ll also offer jazz and Latin jazz.

Adriana Chavarin-Lopez is one of the school’s strategy and instruction support officers who helped implement the model. “That’s why it was really important to use Montessori in Logan Heights, where we are working with children marginalized in education systems,” she told KPBS News. “We really want to show these students are just as capable as any other children to have that academic and social success.”

Melanie Kray is the principal who is also called the Designer of Learning for the new high school. “To a certain extent, I think we are a little bit of a question mark," said Melanie Kray, the principal and designer of learning for grades six to nine. "The feeling among the community is they want to wait and see and make sure we are really going do what we say we’re going to do.”

Eighth-grader Amani Fulton, 14, is confident that her school is on its way to greatness. “Everybody's watching us because we’re so new. They’re seeing is this going to work out?

tags: #logan #memorial #education #campus #history