Class is in session and students are immediately out the door!
That’s how they do it at the OC, a complex that looks straight out of Silicon Valley but sits in the woods southeast of Dallas, in Forney ISD.
"Just the atmosphere here. Have a nice steady space to have here in Forney. It's just a nice place to have," said Joey Cortez, a patron of the new facility.
The OC stands for Opportunity Central. It is a shopping mall, arena, and high school all in one.
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Melissa Crabtree, or "Crabtree" as she likes to be called, kind of like Prince or Madonna, is the center of the OC. She’s part CEO, and part school principal, walking the halls, making sure everyone is on task.
The OC’s hallmark class is called Synergy. Students partner up with business owners in the mall and do everything from managing business plans to marketing to new customers.
"And it's not just a barista. They're meeting managers. They're meeting owners of businesses, we have businesses that are million-dollar businesses. And high school students are spending time with them that you cannot put a price on," said Crabtree.
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As you walk through this facility, it looks a lot like a shopping mall. But with a lot of businesses, you go in the back, here's obviously the storeroom, but it's also a classroom.
"At the high school, it was more of like, a lot of vocab and a lot of and not a lot of hands-on. And this year, it's a lot more hands-on," said Carmyn Lawson, a floral design student working at a floral business here.
Forney ISD needed a new high school for its growing community and career & tech offerings. Architects told them building a facility like this would save millions in construction costs, and generate extra money from the leases in the building.
They bus students in from both Forney high schools, and by moving the career & tech classes here, it freed up more than 2,000 seats at the high schools, solving their space problem, and giving students space too.
The upper floors are a secure school, the lower, are open to the public, who we found already soaking it in.
"We went to Forney High School. But it's very different, like coming back and seeing all this built and just like how different it is," said Daira Kim Carbonell, a customer here.
The district views the OC as an innovative space that can be flexible and open so many doors for students and build a connection between the district and the community long after the school day ends.
