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| Photo: Erin Whalen |
"As graduation season comes to a close, school leaders
across the country have the opportunity to reflect on the way our
schools are helping students from all walks of life prepare for their
future, including students who are homeless, living in foster care, or
experiencing challenges that prevent them from thriving in traditional
school settings" says Erin Whalen, founding assistant vice principal at Da Vinci RISE High School.
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| Photo: Da Vinci RISE High |
The harsh reality is that more than 63,000 homeless
students live in Los Angeles County and another 28,000 are in foster
care. In the face of such sobering statistics, a bright spot: education
can be the tool that empowers our youth to rise above the circumstances
they’ve been dealt, and charter schools are uniquely positioned to meet
these students where they are and ultimately help them achieve stable
and successful lives.
At Da Vinci RISE High School, we believe this is one of
the biggest social justice issues of our time and aim to create
intentional spaces for “disconnected” students to reach their full
potential. Our students don’t have the option of focusing on just being
students and consequently, school isn’t and can’t be a one-size-fits-all
solution. Yet, instead of providing additional support for these
communities, bureaucratic school systems continue to disenfranchise and
exclude them–pushing them out of the educational narrative altogether.
Many of our students’ educational experiences have required them to
check their experiences and identity at the door. This simply doesn’t
work.
At RISE, we lead with the idea that our students already
have the answers–and we need to listen. When we leverage their voices,
instead of pushing them out, success inevitably follows. That’s why we
created RISE hand in hand with the communities we seek to serve. Every
component of our school, from curriculum to teaching staff, was built to
meet our youth exactly where they are.
By continually engaging RISE scholars in conversations
around what hasn’t worked for them in prior schools, what challenges get
in the way of their education, and what kind of support they wished
they had, we began to hear the same themes surface time and time again:
accessibility issues, inflexible scheduling, and inadequate
understanding and support from instructors.
Getting to school consistently can be one of the biggest hurdles students face. To remedy this, it was important for us to find a location for our school that would be easy for students to access. RISE is located in A Place Called Home, a safe and inclusive space for underserved youth in South Central LA, and we also have a facility in nearby Hawthorne.
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Source: LA School Report
