In 2007, leaders of LAUSD and the district’s teachers union agreed to create the first of what they called “pilot schools.” Pilot schools would be semi-autonomous campuses that would have greater freedom over their own budgets and academic programs.
At the time, UCLA had already been working with the union, district and local advocacy organizations to explore launching a community school of its own. In the nascent pilot program — and on the soon-to-be-rebuilt site of the former Ambassador Hotel in Koreatown — the school’s planners saw an opening.
Karen Hunter Quartz, the UCLA Center for Community Schooling director, led the team that submitted the first proposal for what became its Koreatown school in 2007. That proposal was inspired by trips to visit small schools on the East Coast.
“The concept was really, ‘How can we design schools differently to promote these small, nurturing communities?’” said Hunter Quartz. “So based on that experience and the pilot school experience and the building of new buildings in L.A., this was a great opportunity to create that here.”
In 2009, UCLA Community School opened its doors along with five other pilot schools on the RFK Community Schools campus on Wilshire Boulevard.
From its inception, Hunter Quartz envisioned a school that embodied many of the core tenets of the community schools movement — including the elements now known as the “four pillars” of community schooling.
Today, schools that want a share of California’s multi-billion dollar community school grant program will also have to agree to embrace a number of reforms, including these four pillars.