The rambling tan building doesn’t look remotely new from the street, but context is everything.
To the roughly 100 students and couple of dozen staff members of the Network Charter School, the old Temple Beth Israel synagogue is an inviting new home.
Network, one of four public schools that the Eugene School District has granted charter status, receives state funding for its students but shares a part of that revenue with the Eugene district; throughout its existence, Network has scrambled to make ends meet.
After several years in a depressing downtown building — a warren of offices in desperate need of repair — the charter school now has ample classrooms and office space, and many windows that let in lots of light. Perhaps best of all, a secluded atrium and courtyard sit at the building’s center where students can simply hang out together, something missing when the school was downtown.
After a whirlwind summer of preparation and what may have been one of the speediest conditional use permit processes by the city of Eugene, the school is settling in, said Executive Director Mary Leighton.
During the first full week of classes, Leighton has been gratified to see students not just in the classrooms, but in the atrium and courtyard during breaks and lunch, rather than leaving the building.
“Now that we have places for them to hang out, they hang out here,” said Leighton, who often had to go round up students from the park blocks or bus station when the school was downtown.
With ample room for things such as a computer lab and fully functioning kitchen for the school’s culinary program, the synagogue-turned-school seems like a good fit.
“The building’s nice, not near as rundown as the old one,” said 16-year-old Sean Corridor while making chicken enchiladas in an advanced culinary class earlier this week.
“I am a bit annoyed at having to take two buses,” he said.
That’s one of the few downsides of the move, Leighton agreed.
The central downtown location, not far from the Lane Transit District bus station, was just one bus ride away for most students, she said.
Students who come from Coburg and the Thurston area in Springfield face a much longer commute.
The new location — on Portland Street between 25 and 26th avenues in south Eugene — also complicates the school day itself. Network, as the name suggests, is not one but several programs that offer college preparatory classes for students from seventh through 12th grades.
Among the nonprofit groups that make up Network are: the Materials Exchange Center for Community Arts, Nearby Nature and Peace Village. MECCA and Peace Village are downtown while Nearby Nature is located at Alton Baker Park, so students taking arts, sciences and social studies classes have to bike or bus back and forth from the Portland Street campus.
But several students said they prefer the new location even if it does mean a longer commute.
“It’s good,” said 17-year-old Steven Morris, a senior. “We can finally open the windows.”
Still, Morris has to come all the way from Coburg for class and was late one day this week.
When explaining his tardiness to the school secretary, Morris said. “I live in Coburg.”
“That’s not going to change,” she replied. “You’re always going to be coming from Coburg.”
To make the bus connections that will get him to school on time, Morris speculated that he might have to get up by 6 a.m., and looked a little dubious about that prospect.
He’s not the only one whose routine has changed. Leighton has to be at the school by 7:30 a.m. to make sure it’s open for students whose bus connections bring them in well before classes start at 8:30 a.m.
But it’s worth it after several years of looking for a permanent home downtown, Leighton said. Last year was especially difficult.
The school had to find temporary classroom space while the old office space was upgraded to meet fire codes.
Leighton was grateful then for folks such as Jean Tate, the real estate entrepreneur, who allowed students to meet in the lobby of her downtown condominium building.
The community help has continued, Leighton said, first and foremost from Temple Beth Israel, which gave the school a good deal on the lease, offering a sliding scale of from $3,500 to $5,000 a month based on the number of students enrolled.
The school would like to grow to 150 students, Leighton said.
The synagogue members, who now have a much more spacious structure on 29th Avenue, were delighted to have the school take up residence in what was once sacred space for them, said Alan Leiman, president of Temple Beth Israel’s board of trustees.
The building had most recently been home to a child care center, but that organization was unable to follow through on a plan to buy the building, he said.
“It’s consistent with our hopes for preserving the space,” Leiman said of Network’s occupancy. “We believe it’s being used for the good of the community.”