Riverfield Country Day School’s New Center for Creativity: Educating Students for Life

Riverfield Country Day School opened its Center for Creativity last fall, holding its ribbon-cutting ceremony on November 17, 2023.

The Center for Creativity houses a black box theatre, two art studios, a film studio, a music atelier, two rock band classrooms with a recording studio and a large maker space.

Jerry Bates is the Head of School at Riverfield County Day School. He says the Center was needed to serve its 625 students.

“We had not had a good building for band. We didn’t have a drama facility on campus,” Bates says. “We needed to expand our art studios and then, because of the way we work through project work, we needed a large maker space that the whole campus could utilize.”

The maker space has another important function.

“It’s an ICC 500 storm shelter, and I think it’s the first in Tulsa, so it will allow us to put the whole school in there,” Bates says. “And the rock band classrooms are also hardened spaces.”

Some of the Center’s other features include four individual sound-proof rooms for podcasts and individual practice sessions for instruments or small bands.

“We’ve had our first drama production in early December,” Bates says. “The middle and upper school students did the play Orphan Train.”

Funding the Center for Creativity

The Center for Creativity project has been in the works for more than five years. The school completed a $7 million Inspired Campaign for athletics and the arts that brought in donations from individual donors, parents and grandparents of students and the William S. Smith Charitable Trust, which donated $2 million to the project.

What started as a performing arts center evolved into what it is today.

“We built an expansion to our gym, which has a couple [of] locker rooms, a weight room and a training room,” Bates said. “And then, a new entrance to our facility and some office space and film rooms.”

Enrichment for All Ages

Even the younger students are using the Center.

“We’ve had toddlers over there doing things. We have small tables that are built just for them,” Bates says.

He says the Center helps the students by providing targeted facilities and larger spaces where students can take risks in trying new extracurricular activities.

“At Riverfield, you can be a student athlete and participate in a play and do art and do rock band,” he says. “You can participate in all these things, which I think opens up opportunities for our students and gives them a lot of experiences that will help them later in life.”

Student Input

Riverfield’s Reggio Emilia educational philosophy, which emphasizes that children are in control of their own learning and exploration, played a part in the placement of the new Center for Creativity on campus. The original plan was to put the building at the back of the campus, which would have taken away playground space.

“[The second, third, fourth and fifth graders] at the time felt we were taking up too much playground space,” he says. “I asked them to find an alternative location, and they brought their suggestion to me. I took it to our board, and we moved our building.”

Bates says the Center for Creativity and the gym expansion project fits into the school’s educational philosophy.

“We’re talking about educating students both for college and for life,” Bates says. “Part of the work, the project work we do, is incredibly collaborative. They work in groups and teams, which is the way that most of our parents are working now.”

He says that teamwork takes place not just in classrooms but also in student athletics, a rock band, a speech and debate class and a drama production – activities that now have a new home to house it all.