LA's Promise

Our organization seeks to establish a LA’s Promise Technology Academy at each of our school sites and expose 90 students from low-income backgrounds to STEM-related activities and careers.

LA's Promise’s mission is to improve the education, health, and social outcomes for thousands of youth and families living in one South Los Angeles community, the LA's Promise Neighborhood. By 2050, LA’s Promise will have transformed South LA’s schools to have produced 30 years of successful high school and college graduates and will have rolled out its transformative model across Los Angeles’ underserved schools. Meanwhile, the tens of thousands of alumni LA’s Promise will have supported by 2050 will be successful adults giving back to their home community of South LA, which will have shifted from decades of urgent need to a time of prosperous leadership and middle class prosperity. LA’s Promise’s model is its Big Idea: we transform chronically failing public schools and open new schools, both with the underlying philosophy that schools in underserved areas must become community hubs that offer comprehensive support services for students and families. Since its founding, LA’s Promise has become a national leader in the movement to improve public schools. We demonstrate significantly increased student achievement, and our model is scalable to an entire community’s children. LA’s Promise has created a new operating protocol for outside organizations to run LAUSD schools, and it is the first community-based organization in LA history to operate non-charter public schools, proving its effectiveness at scale. LA's Promise works directly with students, schools, and the LAUSD and also screens and manages more than 70 partners who support our school communities by providing more than 200 wraparound services. Recognizing that a young person’s educational achievement reflects a myriad of familial, communal, environmental, psychological, social, health, and physical influences, LA’s Promise combines numerous integrated services to meet each students’ individual needs. Our unique approach is exemplified by two critical elements. 1. LA’s Promise schools are not charter schools: they are neighborhood public schools run by LA’s Promise under a performance-based contract with LAUSD. They are open to every neighborhood child. 2. LAP leverages the community access of school buildings to turn them into community focal points designed to improve all aspects of area life. As the hub of more than 200 wraparound services provided by partners we rigorously recruit, screen, and manage, LA’s Promise schools provide comprehensive support to children and families. LA’s Promise programs are all built on four areas of school and community turnaround: - School Culture Transformation: Before any academic improvements can take root, a school’s culture must be transformed. LA’s Promise relies on a handful of key strategies to promote a welcoming, safe learning environment across its campuses. Strategies include: creating a culture of high expectations, developing school safety teams, implementing a uniform policy (the first at a non-charter LAUSD school); and adhering to research-based, consistent polices on disciplinary issues. - Innovative, Rigorous Instruction: Our philosophy embodies several guiding principals, including: high expectations for all students and staff, a data-driven and systemic approach to all aspects of instruction, and a culturally responsive pedagogy. LA’s Promise educators provide curricular support to LAUSD staff and to all students outside of minimal class time requirements. - Efficient and Effective School Management: LA’s Promise strategically invests in the human capital at each school by providing the ongoing professional development and support necessary for our teachers to become entrepreneurial, strategic, and visionary thinkers. - Wraparound Services: LA’s Promise turns each school into a community hub for delivering essential services all day long. LA’s Promise today works with over 70 nonprofit organizations that collectively provide more than 200 free services to students, their families, and community residents. Services run the gamut from tutoring, to legal assistance and arts programs, to health services. LA’s Promise will use $100,000 across its powerful programs, leveraging the funding to help more than 6,000 middle and high school students in one of LA’s most underserved communities. This will plant the seed for a powerful vision of change by 2050. These 6,000 students will plant the seeds of a bright tomorrow for the region, and LA’s Promise will hone and enhance its work towards a continued broad impact for decades to come.