George E Simpson Los Angles School for the Arts
In mid-December, I spent some time in San Diego and LA, visiting schools and speaking with educators. Ane of the most gratifying parts of this trip was reconnecting with a quondam graduate pupil of mine from the commencement year I e'er taught my form, "Building A Autonomous School" at Harvard. Agustin Vecino now works for the Center for Collaborative Education (CCE) in Los Angeles every bit a passenger vehicle for the airplane pilot schools. He and Rachel Bonkovsky (a onetime Boston principal), forth with George Simpson and Assistant Master Cara Livermore (formerly of BAA and at present of the Los Angeles County High School for the Arts (LACHSA)) arranged all of my stops on the trip.
San Diego School for Creative and Performing Arts (SDSCPA)
Principal Mitzi Lizarraga showed me around her school (http://world wide web.sandi.net/scpa) of 1400 students in grades 6-12. Entrance to the eye school is lottery based, and high school access is through audition. The motto of the schoolhouse is, "Where arts and academics share centre stage." Mitzi shared that her charge is to intensify the arts experiences and exposure of her students; she also must raise funds for much needed arts residencies and adjunct teachers. [Note: SDSCPA vocal arts major Victoria Matthews recently received a 2012 YoungArts Merit Honour in Phonation- congratulations to Victoria and to SDSCPA!]
Like many schools in San Diego, the campus seemed quite sprawling to my urban Northeastern optics!
On this lucky mean solar day for me, choreographer and dance professor Donald McKayle was in residence to audition students for his piece "House of Tears," based on the "desaparecidos" from Argentina. The loftier school dancers crowded onto the trip the light fantastic studio floor and listened with rapt attention to McKayle. He spoke about his experiences in Buenos Aires watching the "madres de los desaparecidos" march around the Plaza Mayor with photographs of their disappeared children, who had been murdered or stolen past the junta.
SDSCPA dancers
Los Angeles County High School for the Arts (LACHSA)
From San Diego, I headed for Los Angeles and LACHSA, where George Simpson is primary. (George was formerly the director of music at BAA!) The same excitement I felt at San Diego's school was evident here. Students were hanging a juried show nigh Arts and Engagement in the visual arts wing. Music students had only finished their jazz series. Theatre students had only done "Preview Dark," which is like our informal showing at BAA. Dancers were gearing up for their winter performances. Exhaustion and elation were on everyone'southward faces. "Passion with balance" seemed in short supply.
LACHSA is located on the CalState LA campus. Also on the campus are the LA Principal Residency Network and the LA Urban Instructor Residency program. (These are both programs of the Center for Collaborative Education (CCE), an organization that I co-founded with Larry Myatt in Boston over fifteen years ago.) George had organized an event for me at CalState called "Transformative Leadership," where I talked with members of both networks besides as other educators from surrounding schools and non-for-profits. We shared ideas about our perspective realities and reacquainted ourselves with the Coalition of Essential Schools (CES) 10 common principles, considering where we did/didn't encounter these principles in our piece of work.
George Simpson, Agustin Vecino, Carolyn McNight, Debbie Thompson
Due east Los Angeles Performing Arts Academy
The side by side day, I visited the Eastward LA Performing Acts Academy, headed by Principal Carolyn McKnight. The faculty of this pilot schoolhouse was joined past the Humanitas Academy of Arts and Engineering faculty and principal Debbie Thompson, equally well as district folks and a superintendent. Both of these schools have converted to airplane pilot status in the past two years. Subsequently I met with the faculty and principal Rosie Martinez from the Academic Leadership Community (ALC), another pilot school in the throes of trying to attain the autonomies that are promised to Pilot Schools (much like those of lease schools), which include: budget, governance, curriculum and cess, hiring and scheduling, and calendar.
The theme for all 3 pilot schools was the autonomies and how to ensure they were being met. These are familiar themes for us in Boston. While districts, especially urban districts, are oft initially open to pilot schools, the intricacies of actually devolving ability and control away from central office and fundamental mandates and into the hands of principals and teachers is e'er more challenging. If LA and Boston could do more than collaborative work, nosotros might strengthen all of our schools and create a system of trust effectually pilot schools.
UCLA
From ALC I traveled to UCLA's Graduate Schoolhouse of Pedagogy and Information Studies to give a talk to their Teacher Education Plan and Main Leadership Institute. A lively group of virtually 30 of u.s.a. talked virtually what makes practiced schools, how the CES principles tin can help guide schools, and the struggles of each of us in sustaining skilful schools.
In this whirlwind tour of schools, talks, and intense conversations with committed educators, I came abroad grateful for the opportunity to learn from educators on the other side of the country. I reconnected with friends and re-charged myself to return to the work we are doing in Boston and beyond.
Source: https://lindanathan.com/reflections-from-san-diego-and-los-angeles/
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