Founded in 1984, LAEP was the first nonprofit in Los Angeles to focus exclusively on educational equity and among those at the forefront of the educational transformation movement nationwide. Over the decades, our cutting-edge efforts in smaller learning communities, pilot schools, interdisciplinary curriculum, career-themed instruction, inquiry-based teaching, and educator well-being became recognized best practices.
Our work continues to evolve to meet the interests and needs of educators, students, families, and communities.
LAEP began by providing small grants to teachers to test their new ideas while also developing programs to support their professional growth and leadership. In partnership with LAUSD and teachers, we have fostered the expansion of teacher-driven professional development and networks, distributed leadership practices, and the creation of urban learning centers, such as Foshay Learning Center, and pilot schools like Social Justice Humanitas and Humanitas Academy of Art & Technology. Today, LAEP is pioneering trauma-responsive and resilient school teams to advance academic outcomes for students and improve well-being for staff and students as well as supporting the development of the early childhood education workforce pipeline.
As LAEP was working with teachers, we recognized we needed to get involved earlier with children and more deeply with families. In response, by 1989 we were working with schools to develop early childhood programs and resource-rich parent centers and Healthy Start collaboratives to increase school readiness. Our emphasis on promoting parents as their child’s first teacher lifted up the underutilized talents of community residents and led to their employment at LAEP as health promotoras, home educators, and childcare workers.
In 1985, teachers designed LAEP’s student-centered, interdisciplinary Humanitas model to promote educational rigor, critical thinking, and communication skills using locally relevant and culturally rich instructional material. Student-led conferencing, promoted by Humanitas, encourages students to own a vision for their future and to share it, plus their progress, with parents and caregivers. In 1986, LAUSD and business leaders expressed a desire to increase the opportunity for high school students to get real-life relevance and experience while in school. The result was LAEP’s development of career-themed academies linked to local industries. Now, our school- and classroom-embedded college and career readiness programming ensures that all students have a strong foundation upon graduation from high school.
Our signature work with administrators and teachers builds their capacity for distributed leadership and collaboration to foster mission- and vision-driven schools. Our equity-centered coaching also supports administrators in dismantling inequitable systems for both students and staff of color. Our experience confirms that collaboration, continuous commitment to equity, and an unwavering focus on mission and vision are the keys to school success—not a cookie-cutter or silver bullet solution.
Every school and community is different, with varied resources that can be harnessed to support learning. Since launching the first resource-rich parent center in the northeast San Fernando Valley, we have prioritized assisting schools in building a collaborative infrastructure. These community collaboratives address the specific needs of each school’s students and families by integrating community assets into school services and creating opportunities for expanded learning. LAEP is the preeminent community school practitioner and thought leader in California and an influential partner in the national community school movement.
LAEP can come alongside your community, as thought partners and collaborators, empowering you to drive transformation and liberation.
Dr. Eric Barela has worked as a measurement & evaluation professional for over 2 decades, helping organizations to better understand and act on their social impact. He’s currently a Senior Consultant with Raya Cooper Impact Consulting and previously worked at Salesforce, where he led efforts to measure the social impact of the company’s work with nonprofits and educational institutions across the globe. He began his career working with the Los Angeles Unified School District and with the nonprofit, Partners in School Innovation. Eric previously served on the Board of the American Evaluation Association and currently serves on the Editorial Advisory Board of the American Journal of Evaluation.
Eric grew up in East LA and was educated in the Montebello Unified School District. He holds a Ph.D. in education from UCLA. He loves a good road trip, with his husband serving as trusty navigator.
