Southeast : FAME SCHOOL

Like a Phoenix rising from the ashes, Compton’s shuttered Enterprise Middle School will reopen in September after a year-long reconstruction.

The $2-million overhaul of the school included replacing the administration building that sat, charred and boarded up, for a decade on campus after it was badly damaged by fire 10 years ago. The school was also painted inside and out, received new carpets and central air conditioning and a modernized auditorium.

When school opens Sept. 13, student fashions will also be redesigned--with navy blue and plaid uniforms replacing the street clothes of the sixth-, seventh- and eighth-graders.

Most important, said Compton Unified School District spokeswoman Christine Sanchez, school officials will be trying to position Enterprise as a kind of West Coast answer to Manhattan’s High School of the Performing Arts. Like that school, on which the movie “Fame” was based, Enterprise will concentrate on encouraging students in the visual, performing and written arts, Sanchez said.

“We’re rethinking all of our middle schools,” said J. Jerome Harris, who was appointed by the state to take over administration of the troubled district. “We want our middle schools to be beacons.”