Partnership for Los Angeles Schools

New white paper on importance of effective school leadership Great schools simply cannot exist without great leadership. Read our new white paper on Great Schools, Great Leaders: A Closer Look at The Partnership for Los Angeles Schools’ Model of Support for School Administrators. Conventional wisdom, along with some notable research, suggests that in the context of school-related factors, the impact of school leaders — defined as principals and assistant principals — on student learning is second only to effective classroom teaching. Download our white paper to learn more.

Boyle Heights, South LA, and Watts families go to college! Nearly 1,000 parents and children participate in University Day 2019! Recently, we celebrated our 9th Annual University Day, where close to 1,000 K-12 parents and children from Boyle Heights, South LA, and Watts visited Cal State University, Northridge. University Day participants engaged in campus tours, admissions workshops, and student life panels. Read more and see photos here!

Our latest policy paper is now available Ensuring that our most vulnerable students have access to qualified teachers Our new policy paper discusses the hidden barrier to school transformation – equitable teacher staffing at historically underserved schools. High-need schools struggle to hire and retain qualified teachers that are a good fit. This report outlines concrete steps that LA Unified and other school districts can take to improve access to great teaching candidates at schools serving highest-need communities. Download the paper.

Santee students are the stars of the school Santee Education Complex showcases its students in powerful way Recently, Santee Education Complex – one of 18 schools in the Partnership network – revamped its schools’ hallways by making them more representative of its students. The school underwent a powerful transformation that highlights the school's academics, athletics, and overall school culture by lining the hallway walls with photographs of its students. Check out the video montage!

Building Common Ground Restorative Communities Biennial Convening On Saturday, October 20, 2018, the Partnership for Los Angeles Schools held its 3rd Biennial Restorative Communities Convening, where nearly 300 educators and community members joined us at Jordan High School to learn about different strategies that impact and shape positive cultures in schools. Check out our video for a brief recap of the event!

New Partnership Academic Outcomes Report Available for Download The Secret to Sustainable School Transformation Public Impact, led by Dr. Bryan Hassel, has published a 10-year impact study of the progress the Partnership for Los Angeles Schools (Partnership) has made in 18 high-need, K-12 LAUSD schools. The report compares Partnership schools with California schools and the results are compelling. Download the report to learn more.

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.

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 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 the Student Equity 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. Seventeen of 18 Partnership schools are high- or highest-need, and one is moderate need. Specifically, our network includes Los Angeles’ third and fifth highest-need elementary schools, the second highest-need high school, and third and fifth 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.