Ed Talks: Transforming a 1960s School - Roosevelt Middle School's Modern Renovation

In this episode of Treanor Talks’ Ed Talks series, Treanor PK-12 Education architect Kelly Denker sits down with Aspen Calvillo, Principal of Roosevelt Middle School, to discuss how a former high school was transformed into a modern, future-ready middle school.

They explore the school’s design vision, challenges, and the power of adaptive reuse in middle school architecture and design. Aspen shares insights on renovating a 1960s building, expanding CTE offerings, navigating budget constraints, and how flexible learning environments like grade-level Learning Commons have reshaped student learning.

Whether you’re an educator, designer, planner, or community member, this conversation offers a behind-the-scenes look at creating schools that truly support the way students learn today.

🔗 Learn more at www.treanor.design.

Topics covered:

00:00 — Intro: Welcome to Treanor Talks
00:25 — Meet Principal Aspen Calvillo
01:15 — Why the District Needed a New Middle School
02:31 — CTE and Elective Programs at Roosevelt
04:00 — Reusing Roosevelt High School as the New Middle School
04:23 — Starting the Design Process & Early Challenges
06:05 — The Design Advisory Group (DAG)
06:55 — Establishing Priorities: Community, CTE, and Commons Space
08:56 — Creating the Heart of the School: The New Commons
09:23 — User Groups, Dreams, and Budget Realities
10:01 — Blending Old and New During Renovation
11:38 — What It’s Like Running a School During Construction
13:10 — Favorite Spaces & Surprises After Move-In
15:31 — Staff Adaptation & Learning Studio Culture
17:43 — How Learning Commons Are Being Used Today
19:01 — Aspen’s Advice for Schools Facing Renovation
22:52 — What’s Next for Roosevelt Middle School

Treanor is a national architecture, planning, and design firm located in the United States. The company holds a firm belief in sharing resources and insights with professionals, clients, and building users to shape the space we use to live and grow as people. For more information, visit www.treanor.design.

Transcript

Kelly Denker: 0:09

Welcome to Treanor Talks, a podcast about architecture, planning, and design. Today, we're here with Aspen Calvillo on our ED Talks series. Hi. My name is Kelly, and I'm an architect at Treanor, and I'm sitting here with Aspen in the newly renovated Roosevelt Middle School. Aspen, can you tell us a little bit about yourself?

Aspen Calvillo: 0:25

Aspen Calvillo, principal at Roosevelt Middle School. This is my fifth year being the principal of the middle school. Super excited about the new building, excellent upgrade.

Kelly Denker: 0:38

What is your favorite thing about being principal of a middle school?

Aspen Calvillo: 0:42

Honestly, it sounds cliche, but it's the kids. There is never a dull moment. I learn something new every single day about tiktoks, the latest YouTube fads, things I'm like, that's what you do with your, like, you watch YouTube shorts over and over and over again, that there's just never a dull moment and you get to be a part of that time where it's just tough with kids and being that age to get to be a part of that.

Kelly Denker: 1:09

I remember my own middle school experience, yeah.

Aspen Calvillo: 1:11

We block it out on purpose.

Kelly Denker: 1:13

We do. So just in terms of the vision of the project. Can you tell us a little bit about before the project, what were you running into in your old school? Kind of, what were the challenges there that spurred this new project?

Aspen Calvillo: 1:27

So in the fall of 2020, the district and community passed a bond, which helped us, and then we got the BEST grant. So originally, our old building was Milliken Middle School built in the late 1960s, had been, it was that typical build where, like, you had the core and then they built an extra corridor, and then they built another corridor, and so it kind of just kept spidering out as the population has continued to grow between the Johnstown and Milliken communities, we have just outgrown the building. And quite honestly, with our career and technical education courses, we had our Ag class being taught in a standard classroom, which is carpet and a projector. Like they didn't have white, like he had whiteboard, but it was like old-school projector on a cart type of situation. So we had, quite honestly, just outgrown it with the programming that we have in the building. So trying to continue to be modern, 21st Century Education, yet be in an old-school 1960s building was really difficult. Like we had the rock wall and everything.

Kelly Denker: 2:29

Yeah, you did. You really did. You mentioned your Ag class. Can you speak a little bit more about those in the CTE offerings of the district?

Aspen Calvillo: 2:38

Yeah, so in our, we're unique in being a middle school that we offer, Ag, we offer Family and Consumer Sciences. So even like that classroom was a split classroom that was part lab, part kitchen with a wall down the center of it, we have a digital media and communications program, computer science/coding, business and construction.

Kelly Denker: 3:00

And this is all part of the district-wide?

Aspen Calvillo: 3:02

All part of the district-wide. So middle school career technical education is a little bit smaller than high school. They have a few more offerings, but all of our courses feed to the high school programming. So we don't have like, we don't have their drone program, but through our TSA, we have, like, the kids have drones that they fly after school as part of that club. So it's cool to have those opportunities for middle schoolers. So our sixth graders coming in have 12 elective options, with CTE being a lot of those different options

Kelly Denker: 3:30

That's awesome. So you had an old school didn't really fulfill the educational needs of what you were offering. So we came over here. This is actually, this was old Roosevelt High School. There was a new Roosevelt High School built, and so the district had this building that was in better shape, and so we renovated that into what is now Roosevelt Middle School. So the quick facts of the project, it's a reuse of the existing Roosevelt High School, a design-build with Adolfson & Peterson, 118,000 square feet middle school grades six through eight, only 23,000 square feet of this school is new. The rest is a renovation, and we were in design and construction for three years. So tell me a little bit about the design process and how that felt on your end.

Aspen Calvillo: 4:23

I'll be honest. When we started design in January 2022, it was painful, because I knew the budget. I understood the significance of the budget and that we had more between the bond, the BEST grant, the BEST grant supplement that we had, that I knew we had more money than we had ever originally anticipated. Yet when we sat with the design advisory group, it was really clear that everybody had an agenda of some sort, right? So I remember sitting there, I think if I remember it from the original conversations, we were the first design advisory group that went A through Z and then started doubling up letters. And I think we stopped it, B, b, and said, like, now, like, we're gonna have to go back here. Just trying to, it was hard, because it was trying to navigate the needs of everyone, while also trying to put personal agendas aside and look at, look at the building, right? Because you have budget, you have what exists, what needs to exist as part of being a renovation like we didn't have a secure vestibule in the other building. We didn't even have a camera that worked half of the time. And so just trying to find that balance, and as the principal, understanding that I knew going in, we were going to have to sacrifice some things. I don't think the rest of the team, being the teachers, primarily, didn't necessarily realize that we weren't going to get everything we wanted. Because I remember at one point we were talking about, could we do a two-story new build, right? Well, with the budget we had, that wasn't realistic, right? I know that was one of the designs at one point in time, though, right? And so the budget piece, and then just balancing everybody's needs and wishes, which came out through user groups, too.

Kelly Denker: 6:04

Right. So you mentioned the Design Advisor Group. We called it the DAG, for short, for anyone not familiar with that, it's a kind of a cross-section of the people who use the school. So we had some parents, we had teachers, we had some Board of Education members. We had some students who would show up. All around, how many people would you say we had?

Aspen Calvillo: 6:25

25, yeah, trying to get 25 people to agree.

Kelly Denker: 6:30

Yep, just, just a consensus-building exercise. And so, because we really want to make sure that any school that we build reflects the values of the school who we're building for. So in that DAG process, obviously we have to take really big dreams and then boil them down into something that we can fit into a construction budget. So in doing that, we have to establish some priorities. So what was that process like, and what priorities did the school establish, knowing we were facing a limited budget?

Aspen Calvillo: 7:03

So we use the core values, those six kind of core values about indoor, outdoor spaces, inclusivity, those types of things. We also, so, because we are an athletic-driven community, two gyms. We weren't, I mean, at one graders are smaller than eighth graders, they just are. point, of the designs was eliminating the aux gym, putting classes in there, right? So that was something that we couldn't have two gyms in our current building and move to another building and have one gym, even though the one gym would have been beautiful. Two gyms was a big piece of that. So that was a piece of it, having electives, elective/CTE, because we have the other electives, to be the center of the school because all grade levels access them. So when you look at our building, that was a piece, the other piece that was dear to my heart was having a common space where we could have everybody together for lunch. In our old building, we had the cafeteria. We had the common space so kids a grade level could never actually have lunch together. And so the heart of this school is the commons area, as it should be in any school. And so those are all the pieces that came out of the DAG that I remember as far as design.

Kelly Denker: 8:51

Yeah, I think that brings really true to me. And I think that those were some of our most impactful decisions were really made during the DAG process. So especially that core center community space. With this being a renovation, we actually took out the middle of the existing high school, not the most you know, not aesthetically appealing, right? No. So we took that out and built the new common space, knowing that that was going to be the gathering space for your school and kind of space for the whole building it is. So what challenges do you feel like we really faced during design? And I'm just going to take budget off the table, because we've talked about that. What were the others?

Aspen Calvillo: 9:32

I would say it wasn't necessarily design. It came out in user groups. It's that whole balance of what you need versus what you want, and trying to find that balance so much as that, you know, we had teachers that were like, oh, I want to have X, Y, and Z, and budget always came into play. But that wasn't, the purpose of user groups was to dream, right? It was to dream. And then, as the principal, I came and met with you guys after the fact, I was the dream squasher. I would say the other thing that you guys did a phenomenal job was, was blending the old with the new, right? Because we knew outside we were going to have to keep some of the old pieces. How does that look with the new piece and to blend seamlessly.

Kelly Denker: 10:12

Yeah. And actually, the vast majority of your school is just a renovation, right? Only have 23,000 new square feet. So talk a little bit about the feeling from new to old, and does it feel like the old Roosevelt High School?

Aspen Calvillo: 10:26

It doesn't. I worked in the old Roosevelt High School, you know, we, we, as the design team, eliminated enough walls, like, even the space that we're in behind us, there's a wall that was a 90-degree corner that, when I worked here was like, the sight lines are horrible. We have to eliminate that. Middle schoolers with a 90-degree sightline like that, it's going to be awful. And so we eliminated that. But out of those discussions, we also created these beautiful areas, these learning common spaces, where each grade level has one our dispersed media/library sits in all of them. It's an opportunity for classes to flow out without walls. We use them for small group spaces, so those pieces got to be a part of it. So when you talk about challenges, it's hard to really say. It was such an upgrade for us, right? Like so there are challenges that existed, but there were challenges that I always felt were doable, right?

Kelly Denker: 11:17

And I feel like you throughout the whole process, were really good at hearing what we were saying and imagining it, and being like, oh, okay, let's take that. Let's work with this. This doesn't work. This works for us. I know we had a ton of conversations about sightline supervision. Obviously, it's a middle school we're always trusting you with you know, the expertise on that. So moving out of design, you were also the principal through the entire construction process. Tell me a little bit about construction.

Aspen Calvillo: 11:47

It was amazing, but I'm glad I only have one building. Trying to navigate a construction with a phenomenal team between AP and Treanor, so trying to navigate construction and to help with the decision making in a timely fashion, while trying to run my current building, most principals make some of those larger transitions during the summer. Ours was a mid-year transition. And so the perk and pitfall, it just kind of depends on how you look at it, is that I was running two buildings for the course of three years, so I was always planning ahead, while still having to live in the present, yet, having the staff live in the present while I was in the future, and finding that balance. Cool opportunity, career opportunity, right? Absolutely. And I couldn't have done it without the team, because quite honestly, between Treanor and AP, I'd ask the questions and be like, I don't know. Here's, here's what I need, here's what I want. What ideas do you have? Like, you've seen other things. I work in a building from the 1960s. What else exists? And you guys were great with that. And so I'm definitely glad to have one building, even though, you know, there's the perks that come with the one building, and then there's that, well, but what about this? Like, we don't have, we don't have this. And I'm like, but you don't need that anymore, like we're here. So doing those things was a balancing act.

Kelly Denker: 13:08

Always is. So now that you went through all of design, all of construction, vision come to life, you're in the building. What is that like? What are your favorite spaces, and did you think, like, what has ended up being your favorite? Is that what you thought during design, or what surprises came in there?

Aspen Calvillo: 13:27

I always knew. So I'm a realist. I am not creative in any way, shape or form. When we did interior not at all when we did interior design, and CarrieBeth explained the wood panels to me, I was like, okay, sure, I don't even know what you're talking about. I appreciate you showing me pictures. Still don't get it, but that's great. And so I trusted her, right? Amazing decision, because they looked phenomenal in the hallways. But when I look at where we're at now, and like my favorite part, I don't know that there was ever going to be a favorite part, if I'm being honest, because the building surpassed everything I even ever thought possible. So if you had been in this building before, and I worked here, I knew all of the pitfalls of the building, and I knew between the contractors in the architects that things were going to change. Did I imagine they would change the way they changed? Absolutely not. I still. I sometimes take for granted our commons, because I walk in it every day. It's the heart of the school. It's just there, right? But when you hear community members come in or like yesterday, we had a girls wrestling tournament here, the girls were like, Oh my gosh, this is the rich school. Look at how amazing. Last week we had a girls basketball team, same thing. And I'm like, I love that. You I love that. That's your first comment. We had a budget, but that that's the impression when we had the community open houses. Just the wow factor. So I don't know that I have a favorite space. Our Commons is amazing. The Learning Commons are amazing. Just the opportunity. The coolest part of my job is watching our kids switch from one school to the next school over the course of a week. Right? We stopped school at our old school on a Wednesday, they came back to this school on a Tuesday, and watching them just walk in like they had always been here, like they it's awesome. And watching them at lunch is is just cool to see 250 kids in the same spot.

Kelly Denker: 15:31

What about staff and the impact of staff moving over into this new building?

Aspen Calvillo: 15:36

Staff struggle a little bit more. Some of that's because in the old learning space, we had something like 43 individual classrooms, so most of our staff members had their individual spaces. When we moved here, I think we ended up with 40 instructional spaces, something like that. And we knew the design was always intended, because of square footage, we knew if we were to give every teacher a classroom: one, it wasn't realistic, because the community is growing, right? But there was, we had to start that kind of philosophy of, this isn't your space. This is a Community Learning Studio. This is everything is community. So we have community faculty commons, we have grade level learning commons. The classrooms are community learning studios. They're not, we really tried. So it was harder for teachers, because as much as I had done that preparation, it's one thing to pack your boxes and then another thing to show up in a different place and hear, you know, I can't put all of my personal things here. It's going to go on my cubicle. This is a Community Learning Studio. And so there was a lot of, I would say grief and sadness over that loss of identity, right? Like, this is mine. This is my space to suddenly that doesn't exist anymore. I think we're kind of through the throes of that now, we've been here long enough they realize we're not going back, right? So there were just some growing pains. But you also had some people that were just like, I don't know what people are sad about. Like, this is a huge upgrade, which was me, I was like, this is beautiful. Like, do you want to go back there? I don't. So trying to live through that was interesting.

Kelly Denker: 17:14

That makes sense. And so talking through with the teachers first, because you knew that you were moving to a building, and decisions were made both among our team and at the school board level of how many instructional spaces you know what was going to happen. We have this faculty commons. And so everyone has an individual working space. But like you said, the classrooms are not solely one person's, and so talking through that people seem to be getting used to it. Are people using these new Learning Commons, and because that's a totally new space for you guys.

Aspen Calvillo: 17:48

Totall new space. And they are, like, they are, it's, it's been interesting to see how they utilize them, because I don't even think we're utilizing them to the capacity that we could, yeah, because right now, there is this like, okay, I have my I'm in this learning studio, but I just want some more space, so I'm going to go out and use a Learning Commons, which was, so they'll bring their whole class of 25 kids or whatever, out to the Learning Commons. That wasn't ever really the original intent of this space. It was to create this flow between a classroom so that there were no walls, and there was kind of this free space. So right now, we're just going from a traditional space to a more flexible space, instead of creating that flow. But I think, quite honestly, as we grow, and we haven't been here that long, right? It's March; we moved in December. We were here for like six days in December, something like that. So we haven't been here that long, and so I think it's just going to be that, that testing of the waters and trying the spaces out a little bit differently. But they do. We actually have, at the end of the day, classes physically scheduled into this learning common and they split it over across the hallway, and kind of team teach. It's a cool thing to watch.

Kelly Denker: 18:59

That's very cool. As we start wrapping this up, what advice you have for other educators, other districts, who are about to go through or thinking about a similar process, a major renovation, something like that. Like, what do you wish three-year-ago Aspen had known kind of getting ready for this process?

Aspen Calvillo: 19:21

All, fully transparently with that, picking the right team. So I was a part of the bid to pick the team for this project and for the high school project. And I didn't realize at the time, like I had worked with Anthony Durst with A&P before, I'd never worked with Treanor before, and so it was kind of the, you know, I sat through presentations and was like, oh, that seems like a great presentation. I think they could do cool things. But now looking back, I completely understand the power of the team, because if we hadn't had the team we had, I don't think we would have been in this spot. The other thing I would say is just being super organized and navigating the whole needs and wants piece, because I think that's something that you don't really realize as a leader until you're in that position. You're like, wow, they're not looking at this objectively, right? How do they look at this big picture? Because I kept saying when we were doing the process, like, I'm not going to be here forever, so that, what's the legacy you leave behind, you know? And so there is, I would say, there's no part of this building that I would say was like, Oh, that was Aspen's decision, which is something I think is really important, because it was the team making the decision. I think it's important to know like when looking back like that, it could have been so different, right? Depending on the leader, it could have been so different, but the power of the team, because now that I don't have that day to day contact with the two teams. It's just weird, yeah, because you're so in the throws, everybody's invested, and then suddenly it's like, wow, it's yours. Yeah.. Here's the key, which is cool, right? It's cool, but you really get invested because everybody on the team's invested, which is awesome.

Kelly Denker: 21:18

Exactly, with the team. I mean, you're stuck with us for three years.

Aspen Calvillo: 21:21

It's a long time, which is a long time. And I you just don't realize you learn the nuances of how people communicate, how they work, how to ask questions differently, right? And I think the cool part about my experience is that I was never afraid to ask questions, and never made to feel like any question I asked was a ridiculous question, because I don't know about all of this stuff. I know schools, right? This is not my job. I know schools. I know kids, but having a team where I felt comfortable to say, you know, I sat at our OACs, couldn't even tell you what the acronym is now, because I'm all in acronym-ville with you guys, that I sat as the only female in a team, and always felt comfortable, and I appreciated that. And the power of the team

Kelly Denker: 22:12

Excellent. And I would say that's one thing that is by far the most important thing to me, looking back. you were always really good about during design and construction, was whenever you had a question, you just asked the question so that we could give you answers. And even if it's an answer you don't like, then that gives us a chance to go back and rethink some things.

Aspen Calvillo: 22:36

There were things that you guys had to do that with, right?

Kelly Denker: 22:38

Absolutely. And I mean, that's part of the process, but you never know if someone doesn't understand until they don't like you say, we live in acronym-ville, and we try not to, but we slip right back into it. What's next here at Roosevelt Middle School? Hosting anything big, or you're just, you've been in the school two months, and you're like, hopefully, just quiet.

Aspen Calvillo: 23:03

What's funny is that everybody that's been to the school, community members alike, like people just want to be here, right? So I don't know that we have any huge, major events. In August, we'll have the district kick-off event for the community here. They're going to host it here, which is cool, because with the new high school opening, it's beautiful. A lot of things have been happening there, and so now they're trying to find that balance of we have another big, beautiful school, and our elementary schools are beautiful. They're just smaller, and so the capacity So we have that in August, and then it's really just showcasing the school. We have lots of tours and things going on with it, just showing off, showing it off, and it's the before and afters is, I think, probably the most powerful thing that people can see at this point, to see the power of a renovation.

Kelly Denker: 23:55

Yeah, renovation doesn't mean that you're going to get a second tier school.

Aspen Calvillo: 23:59

Oh, yeah, not at all. I mean, this school is a testament to that.

Kelly Denker: 24:07

Yep, we're in a renovated space right now.

Aspen Calvillo: 24:11

Yep, this used to be a wall, like there used to be walls here. Yep, this used to be a science classroom.

Kelly Denker: 24:11

Okay. Well, thank you so much for your time. Everyone else, stay tuned on Treanor Talks, and we'll see you next time.

Megan Cooper: 24:19

Thank you for joining us on this episode of Treanor Talks. Treanor is a national architecture, planning and design firm located in the United States. We hold a firm belief in sharing resources and insights with professionals, clients, communities, and building users to shape the spaces we use every day. For more information, visit our website at treanor.design. That's T, R, E, A N, O, R, dot, D, E, S, I, G, N. See you next time.