High-Priced, High-Tech Campus Celebrates Completion

Sprawled at the top of the Sepulveda Pass with a spectacular view of the brushy hills and city below, Milken Community High School is among the nation’s largest non-Orthodox Jewish high schools.

At the college-like campus, ancient Jewish traditions share class time with modern disciplines like robotics and biotechnology.

The 10-acre campus cost nearly $40 million to build and every classroom is wired for the Internet.

Small video cameras allow each classroom to “videoconference” with virtually any place in the world and each seat in the school’s six science labs has fiber-optic hookups, so students can plug in laptop computers.

On Sunday, administrators will celebrate the completion of the school’s fourth and final building, a 16,000-square-foot structure with 12 classrooms, two science labs and an art studio equipped with a skylight.

“This is heaven,” said Dori Kulwin, chairwoman of Milken’s art department. “It’s spacious, and I’ve never taught in anything like this before.”

The $8.5-million building was financed by the Milken Family Foundation and private donations.

“It’s very modern, with the finest technology,” said school founder Rabbi Isaiah Zeldin during a recent tour.

Zeldin will help lead the celebration Sunday at 4 p.m. in the school’s 300-seat Margolis Performing Arts Center. The student orchestra will perform, local politicians are expected to speak and so is legendary children’s TV show host Art Linkletter.

More than 700 people, including students, their families and dignitaries, attended a ceremony last year when the campus was opened.

It has a broadcast studio and a fancy, 600-seat gymnasium.

The library’s technology center has 25 computers and a computer specialist to assist students.

Outside, there is a spacious terrace where students can socialize and study on comfortable chairs. Teachers have their own terrace and a work area equipped with desks and computer outlets.

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The campus is like something out of the future, especially compared with a local public high school.

“It’s very high-tech,” said Bryan Zive, a Milken senior.

And there’s a high-tech price tag to go with it. Each of the school’s 500 students pays an annual tuition of $15,000.

But that’s a small price for a good education, said Zeldin, who added that students attend classes from 7:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m.

“We train them academically to get into universities,” Zeldin said. “One hundred percent of our students go on to college.”

Though the campus wasn’t completed until last year, the school actually opened nine years ago in a handful of dorm rooms at the nearby University of Judaism.

The idea was to offer a unique curriculum of regular high school subjects, such as math, science and English, along with Jewish history, culture and philosophy.

Four years later, Milken High moved to temporary quarters, just yards west of its now permanent home on Mulholland Drive next to the San Diego Freeway.

The Milken Family Foundation--headed by former junk-bond king Michael Milken--financed a third of the new school’s total cost and the rest of the money came from private donations.

“It’s a fabulous campus,” Zive said. “I love it here.”

What’s not to like?