• Category 3

    Selected in 2019

  • Grades: 9 - 12
    School Setting: urban
    Town Population: 3
    Student Enrollment: 1
    Student Demographics:

    Black/African American: 1.3%
    White/Caucasian: 2.3%
    Hispanic: 82.7%
    Hawaiian/Pacific Islander: 0.1%
    Asian: 12%
    Native American: 0.2%
    Other: 1.4%

    Teacher/Student Ratio: 1:33
    % Reduced Lunch: 81%
    % ELL Learners: 76%
    Founded: 1990
  • PRINCIPAL:
    Luis Lopez
  • CONTACT:
    1200 North Cornwell Street
    Los Angeles, CA 90033
    323-227-4436
    msinclai@lausd.net
Francisco Bravo Medical Magnet High School
Los Angeles, CA
All students will succeed in an environment which encourages rigorous academics and empathetic and ethical behavior.
Describe specific programs in place to ensure that families are involved in the success of your school and students.
Through their own personal growth, mutually signed learning compact, and involvement in school activities, organizations, and key leadership committees, parents are critical components both in every student’s and our school's success. Additionally, parents involved with our Parent Center have internalized Bravo’s vision and mission and consistently support our students’ learning, have become better partners in their children’s education, and in many ways align their work to Bravo’s medical theme. Coordination of the annual Parent Symposium, now on its 13th year, cover topics such as self-harm and suicide prevention for adolescents, socio-emotional well-being, and community support resources during difficult times. The Book Club, in which parents read and meet about shared literature with students, has resulted in enhanced communication within our families. Grupo CRECER, led by a renowned psychologist, has focused on and improved family relationships, parenting and healthy families.
Describe the most successful activity your school has initiated to strengthen ties to your community.
As a healthcare career themed magnet established in 1990 adjacent to the LAC+USC Health Sciences Campus, our school’s strong community ties have always been integral to our program. However, in 2013-14, our district invited us to participate in an initiative to adopt a Linked Learning approach as part of the drive for greater college and career readiness. Linked Learning’s goal, to transform high school into a relevant and engaging experience by linking strong academics, demanding CTE, real-world experience and integrated student support systems in a learner-centered approach, coalesced with curricular and instructional shifts (CCSS, NGSS) and our goals to positively impact socio-emotional, ethical, academic, college and career-ready successes and experiences of our diverse student population. We subsequently leveraged our expanded partnerships to increase integrated career pathways, work based learning and college articulation opportunities, and grant-based resource acquisitions.
Describe your philosophy of school change or improvement.
We believe that school change should evolve from a vision and process that is collaborative, coherent, and connected to a cycle of continuous improvement. At Bravo, a key driving force in this process is using a team-based approach for collaborative decision-making in which key leadership groups constituted of diverse stakeholders meet for specific purposes and communicate outcomes in an interdependent system. A critical group, the Instructional Leadership Team (ILT), made up of teachers, coordinators, and administrators, meets annually prior to the start of the school year and monthly throughout the year to review all available data in order to plan staff PD and intervention programs. All department chairs are ILT members who share information with staff members at regular department meetings. The ILT process is highly effective in responding to changes in the Bravo population and related academic needs, and in transmitting information to classroom teachers in actionable ways.
What are your school’s top two goals for the next year?
Bravo continues to strive for the goal of 100% graduation of all students. In fact, the percentage of students who graduated this year returned to a high of about 97%; however, the goal is not just that students graduate but that they graduate with the tools needed for college, career and life, having the capacity to make sound decisions about their future. Thus, not only do we continue to strive for academic success as evidenced by standardized test scores, transition, attendance and graduation rates, but also that we see continued progress in the percentage of students who satisfy University of California admission requirements. We also look to expand our offerings of career readiness indicators such as career pathway and work based learning opportunities for all students: not only to increase career related opportunities, but also to monitor and ensure that all students are participating in and completing career-readiness programs, ready for their own chosen future pathway.
What is the single most important factor in the success of your school that others could replicate?
Bravo’s vision affirms our belief that “All students will succeed in an environment which encourages rigorous academics and empathetic and ethical behavior.” The vision statement conveys Bravo’s high expectations for all community members--students, faculty, staff, parents and community partners--not only for academic achievement, key to success in healthcare, but also for the consistent exhibition of empathy and high ethical standards, critical not just in the healthcare profession, but also to be evident in the school community. We also believe the expectations of our vision can apply to any profession and in life in general. Woven throughout the program are Bravo’s expected student learner outcomes to develop 21st Century Skills, skills we expect all community members to exhibit: to be college and career ready, instilling in students high expectations of themselves academically and empathetic and ethical decision-making--not only in the healthcare field but also as global citizens.
Describe the program or initiative that has had the greatest positive effect on student achievement, including closing achievement or opportunity gaps, if applicable.
In our BASIS (see above) process, key stakeholder groups that include faculty, staff, students, parents, and community members all figure into the cycle to provide and accomplish functional duties and to ensure diverse input. Within this cycle, strategically chosen Tier I, II, and III interventions and support services are implemented, developed, personalized, interconnected and coordinated by both adopting district models and, in many cases, extending and customizing those models to best fit the needs of our students. In Tier I, PD is treated as a part of academic intervention and is planned in collaboration with our Instructional Leadership Team (ILT) to remove learning barriers for all students. Tier II includes both academic supports to extend student learning time in a variety of ways, keeping on students remaining on track to successfully complete college requirements as well as transitioning through grade levels to graduation, and socio-emotional supports for affected students.
Explain how ESEA federal funds are used to support your improvement efforts.
As Bravo has exceeded the minimum threshold annually, the school has consistently qualified as a 100% Title 1 school, allowing us to receive highly effective ESEA funding, greatly aiding us to provide academic and socio-emotional support and services to the full school population. As such, funding has been used to accomplish core curricular class size reduction through additional teacher and teacher assistant personnel, increased academic and socio-emotional support through additional support personnel (academic counselors, psychological social worker, student attendance counselor, instructional technology), academic intervention services and programs (tutoring, credit recovery, summer bridge), funding for teacher professional development including collaborative planning time and conference attendance, supplemental instructional materials, funding for curricular trips to support college-career readiness, and funding to support parent representative and extensive programming support.
Identify the critical professional development activities you use to improve teaching and student learning.
Bravo has several Professional Learning Communities (PLC), including our Department and Grade-Level Teams, Advisory Board, ILT, and Linked Learning Interdisciplinary and Career Pathway Teams. Our ILT--comprised of department chairs, coordinators, and administrators--designs our professional development (PD) goals and tasks, and helps communicate back to all departments. We have centered general PD around critical identified goals from our accreditation and School Plan for Student Achievement reports and our schoolwide learner outcomes including student-centered classrooms, Social Emotional Learning, parent engagement, student support awareness, English Learners and Tier I intervention strategies. Our multiple pathway PLCs have also received specialised PD centered around aspects of Linked Learning, CTE instruction, and PBL, resulting in several core and elective classes addressing our magnet school theme through thoughtfully planned PBL projects integrating speakers and field trips.
Describe how data is used to improve student achievement and inform decision making.
Our community believes that with the appropriate supports and effort, all students can achieve their learning goals. With this in mind, we designed the Bravo Aggregated Systems of Intervention and Support (BASIS) to provide support, intervention, and advancement opportunities for all learners in our community. At Bravo, BASIS utilizes the Multi-Tiered System of Support (MTSS) process but personalizes the model to address the individual needs of our school based on data-driven decision making and our culture and climate. Based on our district single plan calendar and the cycle of ongoing continuous improvement, Bravo has a clearly defined, broad-based, collaborative planning process that, per district requirements and policies as a Title 1 school, inherently addresses all key steps in the cycle: assessment of data, collaborative decision making including allocation of resources, and implementation, and monitoring of results to restart the cycle. Key stakeholder groups are involved.
Describe your school culture and explain changes you’ve taken to improve it.
Our focus on human relationships, critical to success in the healthcare field, has always been central to our vision which affirms the belief that “All students will succeed in an environment which encourages rigorous academics and empathetic and ethical behavior.” Our mission statement extends our core approach: “To prepare students for a post-secondary education and to provide them with opportunities to explore the health professions, while fostering an environment of inquiry and learning that promotes the development of their human relations skills and abilities.” Three years ago we updated our schoolwide expected student outcomes to reflect 21st Century Skills including Culturally Responsive Community Members and have intentionally implemented social emotional learning schoolwide to further instill in our diverse student population empathetic and ethical decision-making. Our “It’s Personal” project, publishing personal staff and student stories, earned 2019 district recognition.
Stats
  • Category 3

    Selected in 2019

  • Grades: 9 - 12
    School Setting: urban
    Town Population: 3
    Student Enrollment: 1
    Student Demographics:

    Black/African American: 1.3%
    White/Caucasian: 2.3%
    Hispanic: 82.7%
    Hawaiian/Pacific Islander: 0.1%
    Asian: 12%
    Native American: 0.2%
    Other: 1.4%

    Teacher/Student Ratio: 1:33
    % Reduced Lunch: 81%
    % ELL Learners: 76%
    Founded: 1990
  • PRINCIPAL:
    Luis Lopez
  • CONTACT:
    1200 North Cornwell Street
    Los Angeles, CA 90033
    323-227-4436
    msinclai@lausd.net