School Culture

Before any academic improvements can take root, the school culture must be transformed. LA's Promise, in collaboration with community stakeholders, relies upon a handful of key strategies to ensure the safety of its campuses and to promote a proper learning environment for all students. A trained school safety team, implementation of school uniforms and enforced policies reduce behavior and other disciplinary issues. Facilities are clean and graffiti free, directly enhancing learning.

LA's Promise also promotes personalized guidance, under which each student knows that a trusted teacher or other advisor truly cares about his/her success. The small school design supports this more personalized environment, as the specialized academies inspire student achievement through close connections with teachers and group learning.

Innovative Education

LA's Promise schools are known for their hallmark academic programs and cutting-edge lesson design. LA's Promise connects students and teachers with the best resources the private sector has to offer and transforms the public school classroom into a place of excitement and inspiration. Small school design, adaptive computer-based learning and large scale interdisciplinary projects and events emphasize personalized school environments. LA's Promise's Innovative Education Initiative breaks down the walls of the traditional classroom to bring valuable resources, people and experiences directly to students at LA's Promise schools.

Weekly Advisory has been incorporated to provide personalized development. Every student at an LA's Promise school will take an Advisory course. This course will support the holistic development of students by integrating a college-readiness-focused curriculum and a system to triage and identify each childʼs needs. Advisory teachers will have the same cohort of students for all four years, ensuring that students develop a personal connection with at least one adult on campus. Advisory teachers will check in regularly with students, triage their needs and work with counselors to route students to relevant resources. Through the schoolʼs advisory program, LA's Promise ensures that every childʼs needs are identified and that they are guided to relevant, valuable resources.

College Preparedness

A college preparatory education for every neighborhood child is the fundamental mission of LA's Promise. Through an enormous network of leading colleges, businesses and other partners, LA's Promise ensures every students access to life-changing opportunities. As a focus inside and outside of the classroom, LA's Promise provides students the motivation and support necessary to attend college and pursue a promising career.

Go for College

Go for College is grounded in the belief that all of our students should be able to make an informed decision about pursuing higher education — whether or not college is for everyone, the choice to go certainly should be.

Go for College is for the sole purpose of exposing the student body to an array of 2-year, 4-year, public and private colleges and universities. LA's Promise College Access Administrator works daily with each school's college counselor to navigate students through the college process, sharing necessary tools that reinforce this option for all. From mandatory college trips for every 9th grader to college counselor training for every teacher, Go for College creates a culture where college prep is the norm and every student has equal access to a higher education. Through events such as an annual college fair and the incorporation of student College Ambassadors, students and families receive the support needed to prepare for and get through the college admission process. Every student must apply to at minimum one college, regardless of their future plans.

In addition to ongoing admission application and financial aid assistance, LA's Promise works with local non-profits to provide one-on-one tutors for students needing support writing the college admission essay. Go For College has provided essential college-going information to thousands of students and families from some of the most disenfranchised public schools in Los Angeles.

Efficient School Management

As our schools continue to face millions in budget cutbacks, LA's Promise has played a critical role in ensuring that every dollar spent is devoted to increasing student outcomes. LA's Promise has formed an operations team that works closely with the principal, business and operations manager, and school stakeholders to develop budgetary priorities and construct budget models to meet student needs. In order to maximize school staff time, LA's Promise assists every step of the way, from working directly with the district to developing budget modeling tools. LA's Promise focuses on strategic planning that is relevant and meaningful.

Teachers and Leaders

Building the capacity of its workforce is a primary objective of the LA's Promise approach to sustaining real reform and efficiency at schools. LA's Promise works to expand career pathways for teachers and support the full potential of school leaders. Teachers and Leaders provides the resources and support necessary for public school educators to become entrepreneurial, strategic and visionary thinkers.

Directors of Instruction and Learning based at each school site provide departmental Professional Development and ongoing principal and teacher support through individual observations, debriefing, data analysis and planning. To date LA's Promise schools have placed emphasis on coaches in the areas of Literary and Math. Through private grants such as the Amgen National Board Grant, teachers are funded across all schools for full National Board Certification, National Board Professional Development programs and National Board conferences. LA's Promise works with organizations like Teacher’s Curriculum Institute to further provide professional development on a departmental basis.

As part of a school restructure and to foster ongoing training, LA's Promise hosts and designs a mandated faculty wide professional development retreat prior to the start of the school year, and ensures teachers have opportunities throughout the year to engage in best practices via a monthly Teachers’s Lounge. There is significant training around how to address the specific developmental (emotional and academic) needs of early adolescents and high school students, based on the need.

Each school takes part in regular Professional Development every Tuesday — based on a rotating schedule of Small School, Department, and Data Analysis sessions. Therefore, teachers have regular planning meetings within their Small Learning Communities and with their departments as well. Directors of Instruction and Learning provide Professional Development to the Admin teams at each site to build their capacity around providing regular, constructive feedback to the faculty they supervise.