UCLA Community School in 2nd year

At the K-12 UCLA Community School, it is not surprising to see college professors and members of the local community walking on campus grounds.

Bringing innovation to education for the underserved, the UCLA Community School opened its doors to 800 students this September, adding six new grade levels to its previous range.

Last year, the pilot school began its first year of operation serving students from kindergarten to fifth grade. Increasing its enrollment to include grades six through 11 this year, the Community School will reach its goal of being a full K-12 school next fall.

The school was established under a partnership between the UCLA Graduate School of Education & Information Studies, Los Angeles Unified School District, and the Belmont Education Collaborative.

Though housed in the six-school Robert F. Kennedy Community Schools complex, the nation’s most expensive public school complex, the school is a public institution, open to all students in its designated attendance area, said Aimée Dorr, dean of UCLA’s Graduate School of Education & Information Studies.

“The school was built with bond money, and UCLA has no commitment to put money in the school, but we commit to support the school itself,” she said.

While it is a public school, the Community School provides many unique programs and opportunities for its students as a result of its interaction with UCLA and its surrounding community, said Karen Quartz, director of research at the Community School.

“I want to see a foundation built where we are really looking at the community as the center of where we should start teaching,” UCLA Community School Principal Georgia Lazo said. “There are traditional educators working in isolation, apart from their community, but we’re looking to build bridges. The community is part of our school.”

The K-12 community at the school creates a microcosm for students to interact with those in other age groups, Dorr said. A multiage community is important for students to help one another grow, she said.

“To have students, teachers and staff treating people appropriately is a challenge, but it’s what you work on in a community all the time, respecting each other and keeping each other safe,” she said.

To strengthen relationships between students and teachers, the UCLA Community School employs a multigrade instruction system, splitting students into various “dens” that consist of students from two consecutive grade levels. Students stay with the same teacher for two years, allowing a greater depth of relationship and understanding between them, Dorr said.

Because many of the school’s students come from immigrant families and learn English as a second language, the Community School instructs students through a dual-language program, speaking mostly Spanish or Korean in the classroom in earlier grades and eventually reaching a 50-50 ratio of English and the native language by fifth grade.

“There is good evidence that if students learn to read in their native languages first, they transfer to reading English much better than those who learn English to start with,” Dorr said.

Above all, the school emphasizes a culture of self-awareness and cultural understanding, 10th- and 11th-grade English teacher Jason Torres-Rangel said. Classes are conducted with special attention to each student’s needs, allowing them to personalize their education and implement academia into their personal identities.

“I believe that the identity of the student is at the center of the classroom,” Torres-Rangel said. “At the beginning of the school year, we do an activity about identity ““ race, gender, nationality, language, bringing in personal experiences to build a high wall of understanding. Once they make the connection between their identity and literature or poetry, they begin to personalize their own education.”

Once students learn to develop and embrace their identities, they take their skills into the community through internships and interactive group projects, Torres-Rangel said.

“Our social studies teachers are heavily involved in the local community. Our kids have teachers who are not the traditional sage on the stage but help bring them into a real context,” he said.

Yet the activities do not come without the support of UCLA and community organizations, Lazo said. Beginning with the 2010-2011 school year, students in grades six through 11 will work with UCLA professors and organizations to explore interactive subjects, from sustainability to filmmaking to Latin American dance.

Called the “Wednesday Seminars,” these programs allow students to bus to UCLA to witness knowledge in action and meet in person with professionals in various fields.

“The Wednesday Seminars introduce college material into typical electives that can be boring in high school,” Torres-Rangel said. “True academic subjects in college are interdisciplinary, and it’s amazing that these kids can take these seminars during the school day.”

While more than 100 volunteers from UCLA go to the Community School to aid in instruction or after-school programs, the Community School also serves as an asset to many on the UCLA campus.

Students and professors alike have opportunities to conduct research at the school, bringing in their ideas to improve the quality of education there, said fourth-year graduate student Peter Bergman, who hopes to create easily accessible classroom information for parents to increase their attention to their children’s academic needs.

“Parents from all income levels want to help out, but I want to make it easier for them to get involved,” he said. “It’s been easier for me to go to the Community School, since it has its own research committee to consider projects.”

There is still much to learn and develop at the Community School, Lazo said. There are numerous opportunities for both the school and the UCLA community.

“It’s exciting; it’s groundbreaking,” Torres-Rangel said. “The kids are excited because they’re not sure what comes next.

There’s such huge opportunities, and they’re coming from a background with more limits than opportunities. Everyone’s going through growing pains as to what is possible.”

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