In Classrooms: Social Justice Humanitas Academy (Part 4)
Social Justice Humanitas Academy is located in the city of San Fernando within the Los Angeles Unified School District. According to the website,
Our mission is to achieve social justice through the development of the complete individual. In doing so, we increase our students’ social capital and their humanity while creating a school worthy of our own children.
These mission statements act “ as a guide to all decision making” for a school that opened in 2011 on a new campus. Consider the school’s demographics and academic profile.
Since SJHA opened in 2011 its demographics have stayed consistent. SJHA has 513 students (2019) enrolled in 9th through 12th grades. On race and ethnicity (2015), 95 percent were Hispanic, 2 percent African American and one percent each for Caucasian and Native American. Of that number 12 percent were English Learners. Special education students were 10 percent of enrollment. And 88 percent were eligible for free and reduced lunch.
Since March I have published on this blog a series of classroom observations about a school that seeks social justice, advocates student activism, and self-actualization (see here, here, and here). In this post and the next I describe two additional lessons I observed.
Shaved pate, wearing a white shirt, blue tie and grey slacks, English teacher CONTINUE READING: In Classrooms: Social Justice Humanitas Academy (Part 4) | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice