A common
mission
makes a
world of
difference.
Mission Statement
The mission of the Episcopal School of Los Angeles is to create and sustain a campus devoted to nurturing souls and minds in an intellectually rigorous and spiritually curious academic community. The purpose of the School is to enable young people to thrive in an atmosphere of diversity and to become ethical leaders in communities of faith, the nation, and the world. All work will share the same goal: to manifest and embody what it means to be both a person who loves to learn and a person who responds to what they believe in with their words, faith, and action. In the Anglican academic tradition of honor, respect, integrity, and joy, we will lift up what it means to be a community at work, study, play, and service.
The DNA of ESLA
Our mission is what we are made of; it provides the building blocks for our entire school. We aim to foster a safe space where the most talented students from all walks of life can receive an education of unrivaled quality, a space where their differences will often recede into the background as they engage in intellectual, artistic, and athletic pursuits—and a space, too, where they can address their differences on an equal footing, where they can contend with difficult questions in a common spirit, with generosity and with joy. Everything we do is in service of this goal.
The Urban Campus
ESLA students are students of the city. We stand in the heart of Hollywood for this very reason: to open our doors directly to the urban community—to participate in it, draw from it, contribute to it. Our campus is located on the corner of Santa Monica Boulevard and Lillian Way, easily accessible via multiple forms of public transportation, which many of our students use to travel to and from school each day—and we have access to the entire neighborhood for academics, arts, athletics, and service.
Students take walking field trips to nearby art galleries and studios. Our service council members deliver lunch to the unhoused alongside the West Hollywood Food Coalition. Our athletes practice and compete at the nearby Hollywood Recreation Center—the largest park in the neighborhood. Most importantly, our curriculum includes yearlong courses on the history and literature of Los Angeles, so that students understand the deep, complex roots of the institutions that shape their place in society. Both inside and outside the schoolhouse, we want our students to feel connected to every aspect of the city they inhabit.
Communal Meals
As far as we’re concerned, there’s no substitute for breaking bread—so each day around noon the entire Middle School and the entire Upper School gather for a family-style meal. This is a time for students, faculty, and staff to celebrate life’s simplest pleasures: good food and good company. No one has to worry about packing a lunch; all of the food is provided by the school and prepared by our incomparable kitchen staff. (The chef who designed our program sharpened his teeth at a two-Michelin-starred restaurant in London. The food is magnificent.)
The kitchen also provides healthy breakfasts and afternoon snacks to all our growing teens with bottomless stomachs. Nutrition is an integral part of ESLA’s health curriculum, and the daily work of building a community is at the core of our mission. At the lunch table, our students model for themselves what it means to eat well, to be thankful, and to share generously in the things that sustain them.
Technology and Pedagogy
We understand the value of carving out some space in a young person’s life that’s free from technology—free from text messages, video games, social media, and glowing liquid crystal screens. This is why our students put away all outside technology while they’re on campus—so that they can focus on the school day and interact face-to-face with faculty and peers.
But we also understand the incredible opportunities for integrating technology into our classrooms and our curricula, and we believe that technological literacy—the ability to navigate both the potentials and the perils of our rapidly evolving, tech-driven era—is an essential component of education today. The school provides every student with a Chromebook and all the software they will need for class, and ensures that everyone has a reliable internet connection when they go home each evening.
Moreover, our campus allows our students to engage with the tools that will undoubtedly shape their futures—from high-powered desktops to robotics equipment, virtual reality goggles, and 3D printers. These are not simply expensive toys; we want our students to be able to ask the larger questions about how technology shapes the ethical landscape of the world they live in, and how it can be harnessed toward positive social transformations.
The Extended Day
Building a truly supportive, engaged community requires a holistic approach. Our students hail from neighborhoods all across the city; we want to make sure the conversations and relationships that begin in the classroom will flourish outside of them. That’s why our faculty, facilities, support staff, and school programming are available to each of our students every weekday from 7:30 a.m. to 6:00 p.m., well beyond normal class hours.
All of our students take advantage of this incredible resource—participating in afterschool athletics, working on art projects during Open Studio, honing their Spanish skills at the Language Center, studying for a math test in Think Tank, building new gadgets in the Robotics Lab, snapping and editing photos for the yearbook, or helping produce the school musical. The extra time students spend together and with faculty is invaluable. Our campus is not just a set of classrooms, and not just a laboratory, an art studio, a theater, a kitchen, a media center, and an office space—it is also a home away from home.
From
humble
beginnings
spring
ambitious
goals
A Brief History
Ours is a young, vibrant, and rapidly growing endeavor—with grassroots beginnings and ambitious goals. Incorporated in 2009, ESLA began by providing tuition-free after-school programs that offered playful, project-based learning in the STEM fields (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics). In 2012 ESLA opened its doors to twenty-eight full-time students in the Middle School—our first brave group of scholastic pioneers. Since then our community has expanded to include over 200 students in grades six through twelve, and our school has developed a broad and vibrant curriculum. ESLA has proudly graduated six senior classes to fantastic colleges and universities across the country and the world.
The school has already evolved through many phases, but there has always been a core identity. If the after-school programs served as the seeds of our enterprise—with their focus on broad access, spirited study, and the most forward-thinking pedagogical practices—the soil in which they germinated was the centuries-old tradition of Episcopal education, with its emphasis on community-building, social justice, and the highest academic standards. We will always remain dedicated to raising young people who understand the value of ethical self-reflection, rigorous inquiry, and generous civic engagement.
Founders Day
As members of a burgeoning institution, ESLA students are faced with the unique opportunity to shape this school for future generations, and to continuously define—through their leadership, their compassion, and their deeds—the broader ethos of our community. Each spring we host a special day of celebration, “Founders Day,” which honors this pioneering spirit.
Tradition
provides the
vantage
to look
toward
the future.
Our Episcopal Identity
What does it mean to say that we are an Episcopal school? And what difference do our convictions make in the lives of our students, teachers, and parents? Whether you’ve attended Episcopal schools your whole life or you’ve never even heard the word “Episcopal,” it’s important to understand where the rubber meets the road in terms of our school’s faith and actions. Here is a brief description of how the Episcopal tradition shapes our life together at ESLA.
“A generous faith in a beloved community, expecting joy and pursuing reason and wonder for the sake of the world.”
A Generous Faith
By design, we are an Episcopal school with a pluralistic community. We believe that God loves every person just as they are, including whatever special form they bring to the human experience: People from other religions? Yes! People with no religion? Yes! People from every walk of life? Yes! Rooted in the radical way of Jesus, we are convinced that God’s love knows no limits, so neither should ours. We also affirm that God, who is the center of our common life, is a mystery beyond words and concepts. For that reason, we are careful not to narrow the paths that others are called to walk and respectful in the way we share our faith. As part of the worldwide Anglican Communion, the Episcopal Church expresses a big tent Christianity and its schools provide a ministry of education that is inclusive of all people.
A Beloved Community
In the tradition of what Martin Luther King, Jr. called the beloved community and Jesus called the kingdom of God, we affirm that there is something divine about crossing the social boundaries that humans have constructed. There is a joy we cannot experience apart from diversity—it’s not extra; it’s essential to our humanity. Practicing genuine hospitality within a diverse community widens our vision of what a just society could look like; it invites us to welcome and make room for one another and our differences. It also deepens our awareness of how to walk the path of justice with both conviction and compassion. In our time and in Los Angeles, we believe that the most important lines to cross are socio-economic, racial, cultural, linguistic, and religious—just as they were in Jesus’s day.
Expecting Joy
Relationships are central in an Episcopal school, and the way we teach honors our students as beloved children of God. We believe that students flourish when they feel known and that they are a part of something larger than themselves. It is no accident that Jesus frequently used images of communal eating: banquets, dinner parties, and picnics. The community that he created was one in which everyone was invited to the table and there was always enough. Along with our work in the classroom, our common life is marked by regular worship in chapel, school traditions, feasts and communal lunches that create the ties that draw us together in a culture of joy. We cannot manufacture joy, but we can expect that in showing up daily for one another joy will follow.
Pursuing Reason and Wonder
The Episcopal intellectual tradition is known for loving the questions as much as the answers, and nurturing the life of the mind is an important feature of our faith. We have a high view of reason, but do not see reason as incompatible with doubt or wonder. Episcopal schools are places where students can chase down their own big questions; where the process of sharpening your thinking doesn’t dull your imagination. In the classroom, on the field, in the art studio, at prayer, and over lunch, we invite our students to ask “Who am I?” and “What am I doing here?” This is the spiritual task of every young person, but we do not expect that anyone can answer these questions on their own. Being formed in the habits of reason and wonder enables our students to cultivate a rich inner life that will sustain them well beyond their years in school.
For the Sake of the World
As an Episcopal school, we educate students to live ethical lives in a world that needs healing. In the language of our tradition, humans are called to be co-creators with God, restoring what is damaged, and renewing what is good. This is largely counter-cultural work and it begins with discerning how to build right relationships with our neighbor, whether they are in our school or across the world. Many of the messages we get from our culture suggest that we find our purpose by maximizing our individuality and our advantages. And while these may be good, they will not by themselves secure a life worth living or a life well lived. The way of Jesus teaches that it is not when we get more (stuff, knowledge, money, experiences) but when we give more that we discover the deepest truths about ourselves and the life we’ve been given.
LESSONS AND CAROLS
The Advent Festival of Lessons and Carols is a service that celebrates the promise of hope that the broken things in this world will be healed and set right. The word advent itself means “a coming into place, view, or being.” The themes of anticipation, hope, promises fulfilled, and promises not yet fulfilled are universal. We invite everyone to use this service as an opportunity to reflect on these themes in their own lives.