An integral part of LCI’s new school will be its relationship not only to kids from 7:30 until 3:30, but also its relationship to the adjacent community. Parents will always be welcome in the new school - any time of every day. Getting parents involved with their children’s schooling is a critical factor in each child’s success. We want parents, grandparents, and other interested community members to feel welcome in the school, and to know that the school welcomes their participation in day-to-day school activities. Towards that end, architectural plans already include what will be called the "LCI Coffee Shop" in the school itself. The Coffee Shop will be a Starbuck’s of sorts where adults, from teachers to grandparents to businessmen and women, can gather to share information, discuss new ideas, and formulate suggestions for making the school an even more exciting, enriching opportunity for all the children . . . and share a latte as well. We want these community members to serve as tutors, mentors, and resources for such projects as the Discovery Room and the Days Away programs mentioned above. In turn, LCI’s Explorations Academy will make its resources available to the community members in the afternoons and evenings. What more can be said about the enormous possibilities offered by a black box theatre. Certainly LCI’s athletic facilities can be opened for community use. Its academic, library, arts, theatre, and technology facilities will be open as well. We envision, for example, offering Blackberry and Palm Pilot classes for adults in the evenings and on weekends. We’ve already opened discussions with the Opera Theatre of St. Louis, the Symphony, the Art Museum, the Science Center, and Shaw’s Garden about offering classes as well. How wonderful it would be if the Garden could offer classes in gardening and master gardening in the LCI Rolling Ridge Greenhouse. We could have visual artists from the community display their work in the foyer of the black box theatre itself. We could even have a "senior prom" where the definition of "senior" is anyone over the age of 55. So many ways to get the community involved in the LCI kids’ education, and so many ways to get LCI, in toto, involved in the renaissance and enrichment of the community itself.