We provide small learning communities of 100-130 students, where youth and young adults who desire a second chance can get back on track and earn their high school diplomas.  Class sizes are kept to a minimum (15-20 students per class), and we hire staff who care deeply about students and who can make the personal connections with them in class to help them get back on track and succeed.  In addition to academics, each campus has one or more nonprofit partners that provide wraparound services to their students, such as counseling/case management, job training, paid employment, etc.

Our Core Values

1.  Focus upon disadvantaged communities within the urban core, where help is most urgently needed and impact can be most significant
   
2. Catch students who are falling through our communities’ institutional cracks (be “catchers in the rye”)
   
3.  Put together teams of like-minded staff for whom this vision mirrors their life mission, and is not just a “job”
   
4.  Create holistic, relational, supportive, family-like environments for students where they can both learn and heal/grow
   
5.  Provide an innovative academic model that allows students who typically were previously unsuccessful to finally understand the material and catch back up
   
6. Create campuses of small learning communities (e.g., 150 students) with small class sizes (e.g., 15-20 students per classroom)
   
7.  Expose students to the wonders of the wider world; expand their horizons through transformational trips
   
8.  Prepare and help usher students on to post-secondary education and training in college/universities or trade schools (be a “bridge”)
   
9.  Partner with high quality nonprofit organizations who share similar missions and passions, and who can provide supportive, wrap-around services to our joint participants/students
   

Curriculum

We have found that our students learn best in a small class size setting with a caring teacher.  Therefore, we do not offer an independent-study style curriculum.  Instead, students attend class daily and rotate through different periods with different teachers, like math, history, etc.  We follow an A-G college preparatory curriculum, but we provide our young adult students with an accelerated program so that they can complete their credits more quickly.  Students attend school 12 months per year, and can complete up to four school terms within a single year.

Uniqueness of LAEC

LAEC partners with high-quality nonprofit organizations, such as conservation corps, YouthBuild programs, and Workforce Investment Act (WIA) programs.  As such, our students are co-enrolled into these programs and receive wraparound services that meet their other, non-academic needs (such as counseling, employment, childcare, etc.).   Moreover, as participants within these organizations, our students are allowed, via state regulations, to continue to pursue and obtain their regular high school diploma up to 24 years of age.