Check out this publication of the UCLA Center for Community Schooling, featuring multimedia public scholarship to inform the collective struggle for democracy, justice and public education.
“Gilbert High School, AUHSD’s alternative school, exemplifies a community-based approach to schooling through tailoring learning to the needs and assets of their students. Through an interview with Principal Jose Lara, the school case lifts up the importance of personally connected leadership and acting through a flipped philosophy of schooling wherein schools don’t give students a second chance, rather students give school a second chance. Principal Lara shares examples of how the staff at Gilbert do whatever it takes to support students, embodying another Gilbert philosophy that ‘students will give up on us before we give up on them.’”