Successfully increasing our schools’ high school graduation rate

Grad rate at Partnership schools is at 80%

On December 12, 2019, the California Department of Education released its 2019 California School Dashboard, which showed that graduation rates at Partnership high schools have more than doubled since 2008, from a baseline of 36% to 80%. We’re thrilled to see that every year more students are graduating, and with our emphasis on a culture of college completion, more are heading to college.

Banning willful defiance suspensions

Partnership shares positive effects from ban

EdSource published an article on December 13, 2019, that discusses the positive impact LA Unified schools have seen after banning “willful defiance” suspensions. After six years of implementing a new policy, LA Unified says that they have seen an improvement in schools’ cultures and a 75% decrease in suspensions. California has also taken measures. Governor Gavin Newsom signed Senate Bill 419 to bar schools from suspending students in grades K-8 for willful defiance. Read more about how Mendez High School and Roosevelt High School are impacted.

Putting her students first

Veronica Amis shares her love of teaching at Florence Griffith Joyner Elementary School

The LA School Report featured Veronica Amis, veteran teacher at Florence Griffith Joyner Elementary School - a Partnership school - in its Teacher Spotlight series. Ms. Amis, who has been teaching second and third grade students at Joyner Elementary for 34 years, shares her love of teaching, her love for Watts, and the importance of teaching elementary school students. Learn more about her in this inspiring Q&A profile.

Partnership Students Demonstrate Growth in English and Math Proficiency

Impressive Network Growth in SBAC Test Results

The 2018-19 California Assessment of Student Performance and Progress (commonly known as Smarter Balanced or SBAC) results show that the percentage of students in the Partnership network meeting or exceeding math standards increased by three percentage points and the percentage of students meeting or exceeding English Language Arts (ELA) standards grew by four percentage points. The Partnership's results compare favorably to the state's one percentage point growth in math and one percentage point growth in ELA for 2018-19. See more results in our press release.

The Partnership Difference

Enroll Now!

The Partnership directly serves 13,500 students at 18 schools in LA Unified, including elementary, middle, and high schools in Boyle Heights, South LA, and Watts. Our schools offer academically rigorous and comprehensive curricula, including STEAM, Magnet, robotics, dual-language programs and more. Contact us to enroll in one of our 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.

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. Fifteen of 18 Partnership schools are high- or highest-need. Specifically, our network includes Los Angeles’ second, fifth and seventh highest-need elementary schools; the fourth and fifth highest-need middle schools; and fourth 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.