UTLA and community spearhead innovative reform project

The Belmont Zone of Choice creates a portfolio of small school choices for students in downtown L.A.

Belmont students who may benefit from the program offer their support.

LAUSD will soon be home to the Belmont Zone of Choice, an innovative pilot school program developed from the ground up by UTLA and a grassroots coalition of teachers and community groups. Final approval of the project was announced at a February 27 press conference at Belmont High.

The landmark agreement creates a network of autonomous college-prep schools that downtown-area families can select based on students' interests. The schools will have wide autonomy in areas such as curriculum, staffing, budget, governance, professional development, and school calendars so they can best explore ground-breaking models to improve teaching and learning. The 500-student schools will be located at either existing LAUSD campuses or at schools under construction near downtown L.A., with the first site scheduled to open in 2007.

"This agreement brings cutting-edge reform and local control to neighborhood schools," UTLA President A.J. Duffy said. "All along the way, UTLA members helped craft the groundbreaking agreement, and the result is a true partnership, with the community at the forefront."

The Belmont Zone of Choice is modeled after the Boston Pilot Schools Network. For more than a decade, the Boston Pilot model has proven to be an effective strategy for urban public school improvement. The Boston Pilot Schools stand out on every student engagement and performance indicator, including higher English and math scores on the state's standardized achievement test, a higher proportion of high school graduates attending university or technical college, lower transfer and suspension rates, and higher attendance.

In Los Angeles the innovative partnership was initiated by teachers and community members with the strong support from the Center for Collaborative Education (CCE) in Boston, UTLA, and the Belmont Education Collaborative, a group of more than 25 local organizations.

"This is a huge step forward for the Pico Union community," said Cris Gutierrez, co-author of the BZC and teacher-principal of Civitas School of Leadership, one of ten pilot schools involved in the project. "We are putting into place one of the most thoughtful, inventive, and comprehensive plans to redesign schools for a 21st-century culture of learning."