LACES History
Since the late 1980’s, LACES has been actively engaged in comprehensive school reform and whole school change in Southern California. Originally at the University of Southern California, directed by Juli Quinn and David Marsh, it sponsored summer TREKS for school teams planning their initial action plans, and inter-school ‘critical friends groups’ to support the ongoing work, and regional conferences. This group of schools, Hollenbeck Middle School (LAUSD), Pasadena High School (Pasadena), Whittier High School (Whittier), Torrance High School (Torrance), South Lake Middle School (Irvine), Rancho San Juaquin Middle School (Irvine), Hoover High School (San Diego), O’Farrell Middle School (San Diego), and Lincoln Middle School (Malibu-Santa Moncia), were among the first schools in Southern California to begin their CES transformation. Numerous faculty from the schools furthered their professional development becoming CES Thompson and Citibank Fellows (the pre-curser to the National Re:Learning Faculty and the National School Reform Faculty).
In 1994, LACES was chosen to be one of the four Training Partners in the Los Angeles Unified School District’s (LAUSD) LEARN school reform effort, and, in 1998 the External Partner for the LAAMP (Annenberg Challenge) 8 Fairfax Family of LEARN Schools. At that time it joined with the LA Elementary School Network (CCE-New York) to become a K-12 organization.
Coaching support for whole school change has continued through the federal Small Learning Communities planning and implementation grants at Jefferson High School , as the II/USP ((to explanation and link to II/USP site)) model school provider at Fairfax High School and the CRS ((link) provider at Sepulveda Middle School ((link).