School

Environmental Charter High School (ECHS) is located in Lawndale, California in the South Bay of Los Angeles County. It is an independent charter school that has been serving Lawndale and surrounding communities since 2000. Instead of a vision, Environmental Charter School’s values are justice, community, leadership, sustainability, and curiosity. Its mission reads, “To reimagine public education in low-income communities of color to prepare conscious, critical thinkers who are equipped to graduate from college and create a more equitable world.” ECHS was founded by a group educators, parents, and community members in the South-Bay that saw the need for education that gets students outdoors and learning care of the environment. The founding principle was formally a high school teacher in a South Bay high school and was committed to working with the same community she had been teaching in.

Based on their Local Control Accountability Plan LCAP, their equity related goals include having operations and resources up to date for all students to ensure safety and learning; this includes replacing outdated textbooks and increasing technology. The second goal is to increase academic outcomes for ALL students. The third goal is to improve school culture and sense of belonging by integrating more of their stakeholder feedback.

Based on my experience politically, ECHS is to the left of center. ECHS has supported initiatives to learn about Teaching for Black Lives, they actively seek out solutions for climate change in their courses; they openly support our LBGTQ students and staff, and respond with position statements to social movements and government policies that impact their communities (for example detention centers caging children).

I have been part of the ECHS community since it’s inception. My younger sister was part of the first enrolling (and graduating) class. While in college I got to complete my internship at ECHS as an outdoor education instructor. I later worked at the school as an AVID tutor, before completing my teaching credential. I believed in the school because I was committed to protecting the environment and helping bring that type of programming in communities near where I grew up. I have stayed committed to ECHS and have worked there for six years as a credentialed teacher because of their innovative programming, their thoughtful professional development, and the caring and loving community that exist there. I also believe that they are trying to create school experiences that honor students and their families cultural assets rather than treating them as deficits.

The Lawndale community includes about 10,000 households, and according to the census data from 2010, “74% of households are families; Approximately, 37% of residents are foreign born, with 52% native Californians. 64% of residents speak another language other than English at home; 53% speak Spanish, 11% speak another language; and 50% reported they “do not speak English very well.” The community is mostly working class and over 80% qualify for free and reduced lunch. The high numbers of Latinx students compared to Black, Middle Eastern or Asian creates a culture that prioritizes Spanish-speaking parents and sometimes neglects other populations.

ECHS functions as a college preparatory school. All students take full course loads that meet the University of California’s A-G requirements and are all required to apply to four-year colleges. In 2018, 97% of the students were admitted to a four-year college. The school also uses overnight outdoor experiences as a big part of community building and this along with environmentally themed units in several classes informs the school culture.

The school campus has over 75 species of tress and plants, live chickens and rabbits, and is recognized as a botanical site. It also has both a wet and dry stream bed.

ECHS has strong partnerships and hard working teachers that help connect students to working professionals in a large range of fields.

Each grade level participates in an overnight experience from 3-5 days. These trips are free to all students and teachers. They create not only a community building opportunity for all but also a field experience that helps connect students and teachers to California's environment.

School Goals

According to their LCAP, ECHS does not have performance gaps but has set three goals that could be tied to equity, one explicitly strives to create a sense of belonging for African American students. Another goal is “better outcomes for all students,” this includes increasing AP passage rate, math scores, standardized test scores, and staying in college for more than a year. In their WASC study, ECHS identified math as an area of growth. The report includes a detailed plan to improve teacher professional development and content coaching for the following school year. It also includes a plan for math credit recovery, early identification of additional support using various data indicators, interventions with students who are struggling with accelerated math courses.

The WASC has identified three “Learner Needs”. Each learner need has a list of data used to help identify this need. The three needs from the WASC report are;

• Identified Critical Learner Need #1: To increase the passage rate on the Senior Thesis Project to 80% by the second submission date (December). To improve the percentage of students who are proficient (standards met) as measured in the ELA CAASPP >70%.

• Identified Critical Learner Need #2: Continue to strengthen AP Passage rates and CAASPP math proficiency as part of the school’s College and Career Readiness Indicators

• Identified Critical Learner Need #3: Continue to improve school climate and provide students with a safe, inclusive, positive learning environment that exudes a culture of high expectations and a culture of respect.

Within each of these there are data that demonstrate equity issues for example the CAASSP data shows that 0% of English Language learners were proficient in the reading and writing portion. In addition they, write that scores for African American students declined in the previous two years for the same test. In terms of the AP passage rate an equity issue involves students who take AP Spanish language and literature have a significantly higher passing rate than students that take any other AP test. This has resulted in the valedictorian always being a student with a Spanish speaking background. For the school climate need, the data they relied on was feedback from focus groups and surveys. The results from the CHKS showed that only about 50% of the students feel a sense of connectedness to the campus. Much of the theory around equity establishes that a sense of belonging can lead to greater wellness for students and better academic achievement.

I believe the reliance on standardized tests is an equity issue. The students are constantly compared to people across the country with very different contexts and circumstances. The students lose learning time (for weeks) in order to take these exams. The heavy examination does not align with the values and mission of the school when it says it wants students to be curious and justice oriented. However the school is currently receiving guidance from consultants to use other wellness indicators as data rather than just test scores.

ECHS has been intentionally addressing issues of anti-blackness which are related to school culture and inequity in our instruction towards black students for the past four years. Teachers have completed professional development using Teaching for Black Lives as the common text which help reflect and try to change our practices and structures. Teachers have also been collectively analyzing gradebook and benchmark testing data to find the areas where our Black students are receiving the least support. The organization has also acknowledged the drop in Black student enrollment at our school. Counselors are now actively seeking out high school fairs at middle schools where there is a larger black demographic in order to increase enrollment. ECHS has also created a full time position for a "black student advocate" that would provide support for our current students and the future students that we intend to enroll.