Students at the UCLA Community School in L.A.'s Koreatown/Pico-Union neighborhood. Photo by Elena Zhokova.
“Their families moved to South L.A. and their parents said, ‘You’ve got to move schools to be closer to home,’” said Cesare. “They started at their new school and they weren’t placed in the appropriate classes and overall the school experience didn’t measure up to what they were used to at UCLA Community School. Both girls emailed and asked if they could return. We welcomed them back with open arms.”
These two returning students, as well as many other K-12 students who have either transferred to UCLA Community School or who began their elementary school careers there, know the value of the school’s bilingual and bi-literate, engaging learning environment.
Principal Leyda Garcia, an alumna of the UCLA Graduate School of Education & Information Studies (GSE&IS) who has led UCLA Community School for nearly a year, said that one of the highlights of her leadership so far has been seeing the school become more unified as a K-12 school.
“With our overarching core competencies guiding everything we do throughout K-12, everyone knows what we’re working toward and what it looks like at every level,” she Garcia said.
Since its start in 2009, the community school has been seeking to create self-motivated and compassionate learners who are engaged and committed to contributing to their local and global communities. With the kickoff of the fall, 2013 school year, the school has also taken on new initiatives to expand its support to students.
A new initiative to propel the school’s graduates toward higher education is the new College Center, a dedicated space for students in the 7th-through-12th grades. Staffed by head counselor Cesare, student volunteers from UCLA’s AmeriCorps VISTA Project, and UCLA Community School teachers, the center will provide information and counseling for students and their parents. The school has also created a UCLA Community School College Handbook, and is training students as peer counselors. Further affirming the school’s college-going culture, UCLA provided a wall banner that reads “You can see the future from here” outside the College Center.
Karen Hunter Quartz, the school’s research director, said that the focus on college is also being supported by a new policy that requires UCLA Community School students to apply to a minimum of three campuses, one each from the University of California and the California State University systems, as well as one private or out-of-state public institution. She also described the expansion of the school’s internship program, which is growing to accommodate nearly the entire senior class. Students will be placed at businesses and organizations throughout Los Angeles as well as in numerous offices and departments on the UCLA campus.
“We are focusing the internships in the fall semester for seniors because we have found that many students write about this experience in their college essays,” said Quartz. “It’s a really powerful thing for students with limited work experience and relationships outside their community to be able to share that they did an internship, for example, at the UCLA Broadcast Studio, and maybe even get a letter of recommendation from a mentor.”
Quartz said that a Bruin College Mentor Program is also in the works to bring faculty, staff and grad students from UCLA to the school three times a year to mentor the sophomore class, share their experiences of graduating from college and provide more direct support. These and other efforts to advance the school’s college-going culture emerged from a summer partnership meeting led by GSE&IS professor of education Patricia McDonough.
The school’s younger students, said Cesare, will continue to benefit from Cognitively Guided Instruction in mathematics, led by GSE&IS professor of education Megan Franke, as well as from the school’s overarching focus on bi-literacy and bilingualism. She noted that science, technology, engineering, and mathematics will also be emphasized as academic areas where UCLA Community School can “support students to be successful and capitalize on what they already bring: their home languages.”
As the community school anticipates its accreditation evaluation by the Western Association of Schools & Colleges this spring, said Quartz, everyone is working towards schoolwide learning goals associated with rigorous measures and assessments. For example, the Upper School [grades 6-12] is focused on Common Core-aligned performance assessments, developed in partnership with Julia Phelan, senior research associate at UCLA’s National Center for Research on Evaluation, Standards, & Student Testing.
“This is really good timing,” said Quartz, “because it’s important this year to show how we’re being accountable for higher levels of student achievement. There will be specific goals from kindergarten to 12th grade to support college-readiness and improve students’ literacy across the curriculum.”
“Now in our 5th year, it’s exciting to see our students moving from the Lower to the Upper School,” said Quartz. “We are watching families grow up at our school, and with every year we’re building stronger and stronger ties with the community as well as UCLA.”
This story was originally published in Ampersand, the online newsletter of the Graduate School of Education & Information Studies.