Loreto Street Elementary School

Loreto Street Elementary School is a small elementary school, located in Northeast Los Angeles, 2 miles north of Downtown LA. This school offers a ETK-5th grade Dual Language Spanish program and serves 280 students. The community has strong ties to the school.  There are second generation students attending this school, and many teachers have been at this school for many years. Loreto has undergone some renovations in recent years including a new “Tower Building” with ten classrooms, a Target Corporation  renovated library, a Multi-purpose Room, and a space for professional development. Currently Loreto is renovating the parent center. 

Loreto’s School vision is stated as: “Students are empowered to develop their full leadership potential through initiative, self-direction, communication, creativity, and teamwork to reach academic excellence.” The Mission of the school is: “Students are proficient readers, able to articulate in speaking and writing their views and opinions, and to think mathematically and creatively. Our students gain entrance to 21st Century skills and habits of mind through technology and dialogue!”

Currently, Loreto has 280 students enrolled. Of the 280 students served at this school, 90.4% are Latino. Of that, 33% are English Language Learners, The ETK class serves students who are getting ready for the Elementary School experience. Each grade level has at least 2 classes per grade with no combination classes. There are sixteen teachers on staff, one Primary Promise Teacher,  one Intervention Coordinator, and a Title 1 Coordinator.

Loreto’s student population includes Unknown (0.65%), 2 or more ethnicities (0.3%), White (1.6%), Asian (1.6%), Filipino (1.3%) and Latino (94.5%). With a 94.5% Latino population, the predominant home languages are English and Spanish. The subgroups represented at Loreto include: English learners (33%), students with disabilities (16%), Foster Youth (2.9%), Gifted and talented (2%), and Socioeconomically disadvantaged (96.9%). Due to the high number of socioeconomically disadvantaged students (96.9%), Loreto Street is a School Wide Title 1 school and has a ranking of 145 for the 2022-2023 school year. Currently, all students qualify for free and reduced lunch.

There are some social justice issues related to this school due to socio-economic status and also in part to the school’s achievement gap faced by some of its subgroups.  At this school, 100% of its students qualify for free lunch due to the low socio-economic status of families whose students attend this school. The California Dashboard 2022 speaks to the school’s achievement gap. Students at this school are performing low in English Language Arts and Math. This performance is seen in an analysis of SBA data for Loreto during the years of 2017-2019. (Data is not available for 2020-2023 due to Covid). In analyzing SBA data, over the course of three years, there is an average of 51.10% of ALL students not meeting standards.  

For English Learners, the average of not meeting standards is 84.99%. In SBA math, over the course of three years, there is an average of 47.41% of ALL students not meeting standards. For English Learners, the average of not meeting math standards is 71.15%.

Loreto offers a Dual Immersion Program in Spanish for grades K - 5th and this program has been in existence since 2004. According to the principal of the school, this program has been very successful in keeping the enrollment of students very steady at Loreto.  

Loreto is also part of the “Heal LA program”, co-founded by Prince Jackson. The purpose of this program is “to improve the lives of young people in Greater Los Angeles by creating impactful programs that will help them pursue their dreams while building fundamental life skills”. With this program, Loreto students have participated in various events including Virtual Cooking Classes and Power UpFitness. 

Loreto received the honor of becoming  a Gold Ribbon School and a California Distinguished School in 2016. This award is given to schools that show improvement in student outcomes as measured through Standardized Testing and Reporting (STAR)  scores and additional measures.