What do we learn when we ask students and parents to describe their school? In this issue of TCLA, contributors from schools across greater Los Angeles offer the first in a series of reports about their schools. These reports are different from the School Accountability Report Cards (SARCs) that are prepared by school officials. SARCs are difficult to read, difficult to interpret, and do not contain the kinds of information that students and parents really want to know. The TCLA School Reports give important facts about schools’ physical plants, learning resources, and the “school climate”—telling what it is like to be a student who is trying to learn and prepare for college. We learn about potential hazards like the lead in Crozier Middle School’s water pipes. We will hear from hopeful and hardworking people who have a deep belief in the promise of education, and who struggle to make their schools better. "We are students that work hard and try our best to get better" report the fifth graders in LAUSD's Weigand Elementary. "Hungry are our students for knowledge," writes South Gate High School parent Justina Paque.

Students and parents share complex descriptions of their schools. Their reports do not give a final grade, but point clearly to what needs to be fixed. Santa Monica High School Student Body President Cynthia Santiago is proud that her school is a ”nice campus” with ample resources for learning. But she worries that socially and academically the school is segregated into “two schools.” In contrast, Mark Keppel High School’s Student Body President Christine Ro feels "cheated" by the woeful conditions of her school’s buildings. And she points out that "the students here at Keppel are better than what the buildings may suggest."

Our reporters speak as ”insiders”--committed and critical, members of their school community. Roosevelt High School is like a ”second home” to senior Everardo León. He feels driven to improve Roosevelt because the school "has offered a lot to my family." TCLA's reporters are members of their school and school community. They are sensitive to how their schools fail to embrace all families. "There is a sense of not being welcomed at my son's school," reports Valerie Muñoz of Hosler Middle School. She worries that few educators at Hosler Middle feel connected to their community or committed to their students. Several reports stress that everyone in the school must be able to exercise their voices and be listened to. Santa Monica High School parent Manny Gutierrez warns that when the community "speaks and is not heard, asks and is not reported to, seeks counsel and is referred elsewhere," community members and students become "isolated, marginalized, devalued."

The descriptions in this issue reveal how students and parents can inform educators and policy makers about school conditions with facts and perspectives that are at least as important as those reported on the official SARCs. (Look for the links at the end of each school description connecting you to the official SARC prepared by the education bureaucracy. That way you can see some of what the official reports are missing.) TLCA seeks to create a different, more democratic process of public engagement with these reports. We encourage students and parents, educators and elected officials, to join in a dialogue that does justice to students who are hungry for knowledge.

-- John Rogers, Associate Director of IDEA

Here is the publications Calendar for TCLA’s Virtual School Report Card Series: