Welcome to the School of Los Angeles

Dr. Kenneth Rodgers, Jr.

President and Head of School

At the School of Los Angeles, bringing together an uncommonly diverse community has always been about cultivating lifelong—and life-changing—relationships. Everything we do, ultimately, is in service of the student experience. A more connected community—of students, parents and caregivers, faculty and staff, alumni, and benefactors—provides both a more nurturing and a more dynamic environment for intellectual, social, and spiritual formation. 

The people who make SLA what it is—those who participate directly in its daily life, and those in our broader community who continue to make that life possible—come from all walks and from all corners of our sprawling city. The role of our School, then, is to make unlikely connections and transformative relationships more and more possible every day, to hold open the time and the space that strong communities require—through celebration, stewardship, and collective study.

Curricular innovation has always been at the bedrock of our project, as well. The School began as a series of tuition-free afterschool programs, embracing many of the most forward-thinking pedagogical practices in experiential and project-based learning. In 2012 we opened our doors full time with a group of 28 students in grades six through eight, and that small middle school program has grown into one of the most dynamic secondary academic programs in the city, graduating students to some of the most exceptional colleges and universities across the country and the globe.

We have dramatically expanded our visual and performing arts offerings, including myriad curricular and cocurricular options in theatre and studio art, as well as our unique, small-band, project-based music curriculum. We have rolled out advanced and elective options in the STEM fields, including courses in some of the most essential fields for our young students, like ecology and computer science. Perhaps most strikingly, we have redefined what an Upper School core humanities curriculum can accomplish. Each semester, our students in grades 10–12 select a pairing of literature and history courses from a broad array of disciplines. This provides students substantive choice in their trajectory through Upper School. Moreover, it affirms our commitment to a breadth of study that reflects our student body, our faculty, our city, and our world—as well as our commitment to a truly rigorous college-preparatory education. 

We have always embraced the city of Los Angeles as our classroom and our community, and we invite you to discover yourself on our campus and through our programming.

Sincerely,
Dr. Kenneth Rodgers, Jr.
President and Head of School

“The role of our School is to make unlikely connections and transformative relationships more and more possible every day, to hold open the time and the space that strong communities require—through celebration, stewardship, and collective study.”
— Dr. Kenneth Rodgers, Jr.

What Is the True Cost of a Stratified Education System?

The DNA of SLA

Inequality in America has reached historic levels, and according to recent wide-ranging studies by the UCLA Civil Rights Project, racial and economic segregation in Los Angeles schools is now starker than it has been in over half a century.

At most private schools in Los Angeles, 80–90% of students come from families that are among the top 5% in terms of wealth and income in the city. Public and charter schools are often under-resourced, stymied by geographic segregation and rising real estate prices, and many co-curricular programs have become de facto privatized. 

All of this boils down to one simple fact: there are very few institutions that allow a truly diverse group of young people to be in community with one another and to connect in a meaningful way with their city and its history. In this environment, finding a school that aligns with your values can feel impossible.

  • The price of an independent education has been on the rise, and it presents a barrier to entry that is insurmountable for the vast majority of families. This often produces a difficult learning environment for the small number of middle- and working-class students who receive tuition assistance, but it’s also harmful to the intellectual and ethical formation of all students enrolled. Study after study shows that students in diverse learning environments have greater cultural competencies, are more empathetic, more creative, less willing to accept the norm, and are better prepared for higher education and life beyond. 

    But this is about far more than college prep. Breaking down the barriers in our society goes hand in hand with breaking down the barriers in our education system. Ages eleven through eighteen are profoundly formative years in a young person’s life. These are the years when a student comes to understand herself as a citizen, a member of society, a political and ethical being. What happens when young people from different backgrounds spend these formative years largely isolated from one another? What is the true cost of a stratified education system?

    At the School of Los Angeles, we have posed a new question: What happens when committed students from all walks of life spend every day in the classroom or out in the city together—growing, learning, and forming lifelong bonds? What happens when they are given the tools to understand their own histories, the history of the city, and the possibilities of social transformation?

Experience the SLA Difference

At the School of Los Angeles, we abide one simple truth:

The best educational tool for any young person is the collaboration and camaraderie of peers from different backgrounds—peers who have stories and perspectives to share, the stuff of life that simply cannot be gleaned from a textbook—along with direct, genuine connection to real-world experiences through the most forward-thinking pedagogical approaches and academic disciplines.

A truly exceptional, transformative education requires a diverse environment grounded in hands-on learning. It gives students access to entire worlds and worldviews they might never otherwise encounter. It opens their hearts and minds to the concerns, struggles, and joys of others—knowledge that will forever shape their convictions and actions in life.

This is why SLA provides over half of its student body with need-based tuition assistance, and why we emphasize experiential learning, direct and sustained service work, and engagement in a wide array of the most important fields of study—including computer science, environmental studies, housing and homelessness, the history of racial capitalism, the carceral state, indigenous land stewardship, queer studies, Latinx studies, Black studies, project-based approaches to the visual and performing arts, and so much more.

  • Every year the School of Los Angeles enrolls just as many students who know what it means to live in the most trying financial circumstances—students whose convictions are forged with a visceral understanding of economic disparity in our nation, and whose perspectives are therefore vital—as we do students who come from significant affluence. Our families reflect the vibrancy of our neighborhood and our city—small business owners, studio executives, wage workers, Latinx, Korean-American, Black, and white. In a seminar of fifteen—our average class size—it is often the case that no two students will approach the issue at hand from the same socioeconomic and cultural background.

    Our students have always embraced the city of Los Angeles as their classroom. They have organized direct outreach to our unhoused neighbors in Hollywood. They have lived at the mission on Skid Row. They have conducted site-specific lab work to study the ecology of the L.A. River, and have interrogated the relationship between river revitalization efforts and the displacement of working-class communities. They have marched and participated in mass direct actions downtown in support of climate justice and other student-led social movements. They have studied the prison-industrial complex with formerly incarcerated activists and scholars. They have studied US immigration policy on both sides of the southern border, supporting the families of DREAMers and undocumented veterans. They have founded and sustained our Feminist Club and our Gender and Sexual Diversity Association. They perform plays and musicals at venues in Hollywood’s historic Theatre Row, just blocks from our campus. They engage in the vibrant cultural life of the city, exploring its many neighborhoods and participating in the intellectual and aesthetic lives of its people.

    This is lofty rhetoric, we know. We are just one small school, growing every day, doing our best. The path ahead of us is long, but we walk it with determination, and we hope our story resonates with yours.