Partnership for Los Angeles Schools

Empowering Our Schools Our Mission is to Transform Schools and Revolutionize School Systems to Empower All Students with a High-Quality Education We are implementing a sustainable transformation model across 18 high-need district schools, while influencing large-scale, systemic changes in LA Unified, the state of California, and beyond.

Strengthening Practice; Influencing Policy Dignity in Schools Partners for Restorative Communities On March 4th, 2017, the Partnership and Dignity In Schools - Los Angeles came together at Santee Education Complex to hold a Restorative Communities Convening for a day of circles and conversations on building and strengthening restorative communities with families, at schools, and in school districts. Learn more about the RC Convening

Conversations for Change The Partnership and Politico in Washington DC Partnership co-founder Melanie Lundquist and CEO Joan Sullivan recently traveled to Washington DC to advocate for educational equity and share lessons learned in the Partnership’s first decade of school transformation work. The day included discussions with Politico CEO Patrick Steel and meetings with Congressional Representatives from across the United States. Learn more about the Partnership's visit to DC

Inspiring Students Come Together Welcome 2016-17 Lundquist Fellows The Partnership is pleased to announce the highly anticipated Lundquist Fellows class of 2016-17! A total of 22 students from across the Partnership’s middle and high schools were selected for their scholastic achievements and leadership abilities after a competitive interview process. Meet our Fellows Here

What Makes Us Unique The Partnership is one of the largest, in-district public school transformation organizations in the United States. We are an independent non-profit organization that promotes change through an innovative transformation model: working with the Los Angeles Unified School District under a Memorandum of Understanding, the Partnership manages a network of District schools in Boyle Heights, South LA, and Watts. Our model relies on sustainable and scalable solutions that can be applied at schools beyond our 18 campuses to dramatically improve outcomes for all students.

Scalable and Sustainable Because the vast majority of our nation’s students still attend traditional public schools, we believe in finding solutions to empower students in the district context. And knowing the limitations of public education funding, we only provide supports that can be scaled to and sustainably funded at other high-need district schools. This allows us to influence broader change by working within and alongside LA Unified to find and share solutions.

Highest Need Schools We work where the need is greatest. As ranked by a Student Need Index - created through a collaboration between the Advancement Project, Community Coalition, and InnerCity Struggle - that takes a holistic measure of student need by including neighborhood conditions such as poverty, violence and access to resources, all 18 Partnership schools are high- or highest-need. Specifically, our network includes Los Angeles’ highest-need elementary school, the second highest-need high school, and 3 of the 25 highest-need middle schools.

Systems Change Our experience directly supporting schools uniquely positions us to identify limitations and opportunities within schools and systems. Our systems change work removes barriers to student success while scaling up solutions. For example, we helped to make gifted testing universal for LA Unified Second Graders. We also pilot programs that have been adopted across LA Unified, such as comprehensive school report cards to help families better understand a school’s effectiveness.

Power in Partners The historically underserved schools we manage need an array of supports that extend beyond our work, and we know we cannot achieve our mission on our own. Our success is built by creating strong partnerships and leveraging the expertise of partner organizations, community members, and dozens of funders. Our partners help serve the individual needs of our schools and students by providing social emotional supports, health and wellness care, academic interventions, after-school programming, and much more, ensuring success beyond what we alone can provide.