- Info
Woodrow Wilson High School and Community
Wilson High School is a public high school in East Los Angeles. The students are predominantly Latino. Most come from low-income households. The school has limited resources allocated for projects that are initiated by students or educators. With our TIIP project, we intend to encourage and support participatory action research and extend it to the school community.
Wilson
High School is nestled atop the Ascot Hills with a view of both of its
realities: an urban landscape of downtown Los Angeles and the indigenous hills
of northeast Los Angeles and the San Gabriel Mountains as their background. It
is a public high school on a traditional September to June schedule with a "four by four block schedule." Wilson has
recently reorganized into small learning communities with contiguous spaces.
Wilson
students primarily come from El Sereno and City Terrace, two communities with a
strong Latino presence. Its residents, businesses and public art are lively
examples of rich cultural expressions. Wilson is 93 percent Latino in student
population; it also has a 3.9 percent Asian population and 1.6 percent African
American student population (Data Quest, 2009). The majority of our students come from low-income households. 75 percent of our students are on
free and reduced lunch (California Educational Opportunity Report, 2010).
Wilson
High School faces many obstacles, but it is also a place where many
people strive to improve the quality of students' lives. There is continual
staff development, but our major obstacle is limited resources. There are
various school-wide initiatives on campus, such as small learning communities
and an International Baccalaureate application and review process, but very few
teacher-initiated, let alone student-initiated school projects. There are very
few resources allocated for teacher and student initiatives and most of these
projects involve funding from outside entities such as universities and other
organizations. With our project, we want to encourage and support participatory research and go beyond the confines of just a few classrooms. We
want to expand it out to our school community.