By Jorge Casuso

November 19, 2025 -- Half a century after it was founded, the Santa Monica Alternative School House (SMASH) in Ocean Park will have a new campus and a new name when the school year kicks off next fall.

After more than 30 meetings over the past three years with parents, community members, staff and the School Board members, District officials Tuesday announced Ocean Park School House as the new school name.

The name -- approved by the School Board on October 7 -- reflects "a shared interest in creating a single neighborhood school on that site as well as a new name that centered around the Ocean Park neighborhood," District officials said.

A survey conducted by the District found Ocean Park School House was the choice of 97 of the 172 community members who weighed in. Ocean Park Community School and Ocean Park Lab School received 36 and 29 votes respectively.

The Ocean Park School House will welcome students at the start of the 2026-2027 school year to the newly remodeled campus at 2526 6th Street, District officials said.

The campus features "modernized classrooms, a new parking lot with drop-off and pick-up zones, a new administration building to improve security and a new innovation lab for project-based learning."

The old campus that housed the formerly combined campus of SMASH and John Muir Elementary School was vacated after District officials determined that "decades of persistent water intrusion had significantly impacted multiple campus structures."

The extensive mold and water damage was "most likely the result of a modernization project in 2001 or even when the campus was first constructed in the 1990s," officials said.

The campus was closed and vacated at the end of the 2021-22 school year in an effort to undertake significant repairs, and new construction and remodeling began in September 2023 funded by Measures SMS and QS.

SMASH will remain at the Michelle and Barack Obama Center for Inquiry and Exploration (formerly Olympic High School) for the fall and spring semesters before moving to Ocean Park School House over summer break.

SMASH was founded in 1973 by parents, teachers and students "as a progressive school of choice" that uses "a constructivist approach to learning with a curriculum developed collaboratively between teachers and students."

"First, we have a curriculum that builds upon student interest and real-life issues and problems," according to the school's website.

"Next, we provide a structure that offers flexibility that includes heterogeneous and multi-age group arrangements for children.

"Finally, we offer an environment that embraces freedom with responsibility and addresses the balance between the needs of the individual and the needs of the community."

SMASH originally served grades Kindergarten through 12th, before being downgraded to a Kindergarten through middle school curriculum in the late 1980s.