Partnership for Los Angeles Schools

Partnership Teacher Residency with Alder Graduate School of Education

The Alder Graduate School of Education teacher residency program is based on a model that combines immersive hands-on practice in the classroom with educational theory and research. In collaboration with the Partnership for Los Angeles Schools, Alder’s teacher residents will be assigned to LA Unified schools within the Partnership’s network.

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Introducing The Watkins Fellows Program for Partnership Students

In November 2021, the Partnership announced the launch of a new $4-million college scholarship program that will support 80 Partnership students over the next eight years with their higher education. The financial support can be used for tuition and housing expenses. Students from all five Partnership high schools will be eligible for the Fellowship.

Families of English Learners Share What Is — And What Is Not — Working For Their Students

In October 2021, we released a policy brief entitled, “What Families of English Learners Say Their Students Need: Five Policy and Practice Implications.” While all students in California have been impacted by the pandemic, we know from experience that the past year surfaced unique challenges and needs for English learners, and we believe it is vital to listen and respond with supports that are rooted in their lived experiences.

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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 (LA Unified) 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 19 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. 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 the Student Equity Need Index (SENI) – created through a collaboration between the Advancement Project, Community Coalition, and InnerCity Struggle. The SENI takes a holistic measure of student need by including neighborhood conditions such as poverty, violence and access to resources. Fourteen of 19 Partnership schools are high- or highest-need. Specifically, our network includes Los Angeles’ fourth and ninth highest-need elementary schools; the second and fourth highest-need middle schools; and the seventh highest-need high school.

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. A recent example of our work centers around equitable funding for high-need schools. In 2018, through advocacy with our partners, we were instrumental in helping secure approval from LA Unified’s Board of Education for a revised Student Equity Need Index, which now includes indicators that more accurately identify and fund the district’s highest need schools. We also advocated for allocation of approximately $260 million of funds to schools in 2019-20 based on their index ranking. We believe equity-based funding is a critical issue for school districts and we are continuing to advocate for more discretionary funds to be prioritized for our highest-need schools.

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.