Writing in the Schools HQ Summer Camp

Access to tech and creative industry employment

San Gabriel Valley

Expand existing project, program, or initiative (expanding and continuing ongoing, successful work)

National test results have shown striking drops in teenage students’ math and reading scores, with only 47% of students in California meeting standard for English language arts. Numerous studies show that arts education helps foster student engagement, attendance, and motivation to learn. It also promotes improved school culture. By participating in arts programs, economically disadvantaged and at-risk students are less likely to receive disciplinary infractions, are more likely to have higher reading and writing scores and are more likely to be compassionate. Unfortunately, even with efforts stemming from Proposition 28, only 11% of California schools fulfill the state requirement of providing arts classes to their students. Schools lacking these programs disproportionately affect minority and low-income students. Furthermore, the literary industry needs more diverse publishers and editors, but barriers to arts education keeps them from becoming part of the growing creative economy.

For over two decades, Red Hen Press (RHP) has provided outstanding arts education to students in underfunded schools through our WITS program. WITS places published poets in K-12 ‘Title I’ classrooms, leading creative writing workshops for youth who likely wouldn’t have had the opportunity to learn and express their lived experiences through creative work.
Funding from LA2050 will provide support for the second year of our WITS program expansion, WITS HQ, an arts education hub for underserved Pasadena youth. WITS HQ will equip students with creative and practical skills in the disciplines of book publishing, new media marketing, and audio storytelling. As students enter a world in which social media, editing, videography, and writing prove more valuable every year, WITS HQ will give them practical experience to create further avenues of employment (and hopefully diversify the arts and publishing industries).
Going into its third year, the program has learned the most effective ways to both mentor students successfully and to remain accessible to as many students as possible. The program is shifting into a one-week intensive program allowing middle and high school students to join staff onsite and learn the trajectory of how a book goes from being written, to being acquired, to being published and marketed.
Additional funds will go towards serving and expanding our regular WITS program, allowing us to hire an additional poetry instructor and expand to a fourth school.

We believe that change starts at the local level and with the youth. Our WITS service areas have included Pasadena, Altadena, Hollywood, Inglewood, Nevin, and Pacoima. We’ve put free books in over 6,000 students’ hands over the years. Sometimes these books have been the only ones in their homes. Though WITS HQ has affected the lives of 15 underserved students, the program is already beginning to grow. Now that we have the majority of our capital needs met and have used our experience from the program's first year to adjust and improve the scheduling and syllabus, the program will be sustainable and will be scaled to reach more students, not only in the summer, and not only in Pasadena. The literary industry needs more publishers and editors, especially from diverse backgrounds. Students today are the creators of tomorrow, and if our work continues to be successful, there will be many more employed writers, artists, and publishers from all backgrounds in LA County’s future.