Laura Laird

Sherine Smith
EDA 611
Local Community School Description

Local Community School Description

For this paper, I am using the data on the California Department of Education website

for my school, Gompers Preparatory Academy 2018-2019. The school is a charter school with

1,320 students grades sixth through twelfth. The community of students we serve are 87.6

socioeconomically disadvantaged. 77.7% of students that qualify for free or reduced lunch and

19.8% English language learner students. 98.08% of our English language learners’ primary

language is Spanish with 1.15% other non-English languages, .38% speaking Lao and .38%

Speaking Somali. Our 1,320 students are identified as 86.5% Hispanic or Latino, 8.2% African

American, 3.5 Asian, .6% Pacific Islander, .5% Filipino, .5% two or more races and .3% white.

Our graduation rate last year was down 2.5% to 96.8%.

Those are the numbers for our urban inner-city school, but they tell only part of the

story. It is our parents that have started the charter in 2005 when the school was a failing

middle school and demanded that the school do a better job providing their children with more

opportunities. In the year before the charter there were over twenty teaching positions that

were never filled. Imagine you’re a child having a different teacher every day. In our text, like

so many others, it speaks about the achievement gap. I would rather we think about it as an

opportunity gap. The text goes on to mention all the ways in which the higher socioeconomic

strata have more opportunities in the home than the lower. It is those opportunities that we

have to create. I agree with the text, we should be values first. It is our values that define us. It

the times of challenges it will be our values and belief systems that guide us into action.
 Our school has a very strong culture for our students. All students wear uniforms with

ties, are expected to know recite and live by the mission statement core beliefs, non-

negotiables, five rules and REACH which stands for respect, enthusiasm, achievement,

citizenship and hard work. All students are to have an independent reading book, backpack and

binder. If they require assistance with supplies, we help there as well. Even though over 70%

of the students have free and reduced lunch we pay for the rest of the students. Where many

charters range from 8%-17% students with special needs we have a special education

population of approximately 18%. Families with special needs students seek out our school

because of our values and services.

As far as our ELL population this is an area of growth for us and one that we are

devoting a great deal of time and resources to. We have and ELL coordinator on site, ESY

course and of course of the designated ELD and language development support within the

classroom. We have had weekly schoolwide PD and department PD and have sent teachers and

leaders to outside trainings. Our parents are becoming more involved in ELAC and learning how

to advocate and support their child.

As far as the diversity of the school leadership, our chairman of the board is African

American male, our superintendent/director is a Latino male from the community and of our

three assistant directors we have a white male, a white female, and an African American

woman in the community. We also have several teachers and staff of color and that reside

within the community.

The culture of the school and community has been strong and united over the years.

We have an extended day and school year, offer summer school, winter intercession, spring
intercession to work with our language learners and most at-risk students. Strong relationships

among staff and families created trust and partnerships. All students take at least 1 AP class

and have free study sessions throughout the year to prepare them. We had weekly school and

department PD. We sent teachers to Stanford for AP training. We have a parent prep academy

where parents learn to be advocates and what is needed for their child to be successful and get

into the college they desire. It was not perfect. There are always areas to improve but

everyone was working towards the same goal. In some of the teachers formed a union. I can’t

speak to that year, I wasn’t there. I returned this year, and now some of the teachers are trying

to decertify the union. We are not as united as we once were, but our parents are again

speaking up and advocating for their children and community. We have more parents on

campus volunteering, attending board meetings, and other school events and reaching out to

teachers and leaders. We definitely have challenges ahead as school community but continue

to move forward to give each and every child the opportunities to succeed.