As a Network Partner, MLA has taken a public stand on the matter of budget cuts and layoffs, and we want to assure you of the actions we have taken to confront this crisis. MLA is working with the school community and district officials to do the following: minimize the impact of bumping and protect the school’s right to choose a principal and administrators, continue to argue the “skip” provision with the district and UTLA to exempt partner schools from layoffs, and continue to push for increased resources to the school site and greater local autonomy over those resources.
Read the letter to Superintendent Cortines from Network Partners requesting exemption from layoffs and bumping and to be provided the authority to determine budget cuts within the school level.
About MLA Partner Schools
MLA Partner Schools is a nonprofit organization working to improve schools and empower neighborhoods in some of the most disenfranchised communities in Los Angeles. MLA creates high performing urban schools that combine innovation, equity and access, offering a college-ready education to every child in the surrounding neighborhood. These schools become community focal points that support and strengthen their communities. An MLA Partner School is a public school designed and managed in a collaboration between MLA, LAUSD and community stakeholders. The city’s first Partner School, West Adams Prep, opened in September 2007 to serve 2500 students with a first-rate education, setting a new standard for public schools and anchoring a strategic revitalization of the surrounding neighborhood.
MLA believes that public schools should be neighborhood schools, designed to serve the needs of a unique community and accessible to the residents who live nearby. For this reason, MLA focuses its work within the community its founders have served since 1995 – the greater community of South Los Angeles. MLA’s vision for the coming years is to create a network of schools within the same geographic area that offer the level of education that all students deserve, and that these schools become community focal points to empower their surrounding neighborhood.
MLA has joined together with WestEd’s new Tipping Point Assistance Center to facilitate the large scale turnaround of Manual Arts High School through LAUSD’s iDesign Schools division. As a nonprofit, development, and service agency, WestEd enhances and increases education and human development within schools, families, and communities.
