The brand-new Girls Athletic Leadership School campus, an all-girl school and the first school in Los Angeles County made entirely of shipping containers, opened this semester in Van Nuys.
It consists of 32 shipping containers, each 40-feet-long with 16 containers used for the first floor of the school and 16 on the second story. The containers were placed one container at a time.
The shipping containers, coated with two types of primer and different paint colors, are made of Corten steel, a weathered metal alloy with a patina finish resistant to corrosion that can withstand exposure to a variety of elements, such fire, earthquake and the most severe weather conditions.
After relocating three times in five years, Girls Athletic Leadership School (GALS LA) finally found a permanent home on a one-acre lot on Runnymede Avenue in a residential neighborhood.
The building that houses GALS LA — an all-girls middle school with a holistic approach to education — measures 21,360 square feet and includes 17 classrooms, a multipurpose room, a dance room, an office, conference space and a lounge with an outdoor patio for teachers.
The base structure of the school’s modules is made of 85% recycled material. You might call it an eco-friendly masterpiece that was carefully designed to reduce the use of electricity, water and construction materials like wood.
“All of the lighting indoors and outdoors are LED lighting,” explained Vanessa Garza, executive director and founding principal. “Additionally, there are no sprinklers on our campus. It is watered through a closed irrigation system with reclaimed rainwater. The cistern is under our parking lot.”
Future plans include a vegetable garden.
The school’s artificial track and athletic field, where students exercise every morning before class to get their brains ready for learning, takes the place of grass that requires watering.
“GALS LA is an asset to the community,” Garza said.
But like all schools, GALS LA has its do’s and don’ts.
“We allow students to eat in class as long as it’s healthy and fresh items, because when you grow up to be an adult you don’t eat on a school lunch schedule,” Garza said. “So we want you to listen to your body because that’s what you do when you grow up.”
GALS LA opened in North Hills in 2016, then relocated to Panorama City before moving to the Van Nuys location. Cell phones were a no-no on campus and that rule remains. Students turn them off and put them in their backpacks so they don’t zone in on their cells and ignore their teachers and classmates. Exercise attire is allowed in class, but jeans are prohibited.
Eight-grader Victoria Chavez of Panorama City, who came to GALS LA three years ago not speaking English, is now fluent. She said she is happy to be at the Van Nuys school which gives her the chance to participate in different sports and figure out which sports she is best at, or that she likes.
“It’s not bad (here),” said 13-year-old Victoria. “It seems like a normal school.”
GALS LA is a free, public independent charter middle school authorized by Los Angeles Unified School District, and 65 percent of the staff were born and raised in San Fernando Valley. The school is the first and only all-girls middle school in the Valley, and home to 176 students — but the student body can grow given that the new building’s capacity is 330 students.
“We absolutely want to be at full capacity,” Garza said.
The California Crate Modular, a company that provided the containers, was part of a factory-built housing and commercial modular program in the California Department of Housing and Community Development in Sacramento.
The nearly brand-new shipping containers go unused after one-way trips carrying dry goods from China, and California Crate Modular repurposes the “certified-fresh” shipping containers for a wide variety of custom and off-the-shelf housing, from ADUs (Accessory Dwelling Units) — backyard homes — to multi-story apartment buildings.
GALS LA is one of the first schools to meet the expanded guidelines from the City of Los Angeles’ effort known as “Healthy Buildings, Healthy Places,” launched in 2021 by the city’s planning department to encourage projects that bring together sustainable, community-centered design, physical and emotional health, and equity — particularly in communities of color.
It took two years and five months after breaking ground to finish construction of the $16-million project, which is less than the average development cost of a traditional school in Los Angeles, according to school officials.
Students of color make up 96% of the school — 83 percent Hispanic, 12 percent Black, and 5 percent white and mixed races — and 88% come from low and moderate income families.
And most of the students at GALS LA say they are college bound.
Katherine Cordova, the athletic director and life skills teacher, has worked at GALS LA for three years.
“I love that it’s an all-girl school,” Cordova said. “(With) a holistic approach to education, it’s not only about academics but we are about the social/emotional well-being of the girls. GALS pledge is said every morning at the end of their movement class (meaning physical education) and reaffirms their goals and uplifts them to prepare them for their school day.”