Inglewood News AND LENNOX CITIZEN The Weekly Newspaper of Inglewood Herald Publications - Inglewood, Hawthorne, Lawndale, El Segundo, Torrance & Manhattan Beach Community Newspapers Since 1911 - Circulation 30,000 - Readership 60,000 (310) 322-1830 - January 15, 2015 South Bay Business Carries On Evening falls over the 400 East block of Manchester Boulevard. Photo by Osvin Suazo, ozzy.suazo@gmail.com IUSD to Receive Grant to Launch Law, Government Academy By Cristian Vasquez The Inglewood Unified School District was named the recipient of a $35,000 Specialized Secondary Program (SSP) Planning Grant from the California Department of Education brining the Inglewood High School Law Academy one step closer to becoming a reality. Only one of four Los Angeles County applicants to be fully funded, the district will use the money to fund everything associated with planning and implementing a destination linked-learning Law and Government Program at Inglewood High. “I am always on the lookout for opportunities to bring and build programs that will attract great students, retain our best students to remain in Inglewood,” Executive Director of the Strategic Development Initiative at Inglewood Unified School District Tom Chan said. “If we want our population to remain in Inglewood we have to provide world-class opportunities for them.” Inglewood High’s program is scheduled to begin in August with one class offered to incoming freshmen. An additional class will be added each year to complete a four-year sequence of classes by 2018. However, the process to obtain a grant for this program began more than a year ago when Chan came into contact with Inglewood High School’s Academic Decathlon team. “It was a really rags to riches story where she took this team and coached them to finish fourth pace in their division, which was their best showing ever,” Chan said. “That is when I became acquainted with some really amazing teachers and students at Inglewood High School last year.” After that encounter, in an unrelated event, the district was made aware of an opportunity to visit Southwestern Law College where there was an exhibit highlighting legal professions in history. Since Chan’s position in the district is about strategic development, he visited the campus and was taken on a tour with an assistant dean. The opportunity to have IUSD students visit was offered and Chan knew exactly who to invite and spoke to the decathlon teachers. “I told them [teachers] before we went that the kids should be given some objectives so that they got the most out of the visit and these teacher really stepped up; they really prepared these kids and told them to prepare because they were going to law school,” Chan said. “In the end we had the entire Academic Decathlon as well as students from AVID, maybe about 25 kids from Inglewood High School.” Days after that experience Chan found the perfect opportunity to expand on the students’ visit to the law school campus. “I saw this grant opportunity from the state called Secondary Specialized Programs [SST] and it talked about money being used to create a new and innovative program for schools at the high school level,” Chan said. “That is when the light bulb went off about doing a linked-learning opportunity with an emphasis in law.” Students will learn the administration of justice and government and the elements and practice of the law, debate, legal research and legal writing. The program will also highlight landmark legal cases and how they have shaped U.S. history and how these rulings impact their daily lives. Students will also study and practice specialty areas of law such as copyright, patent and business law. The grant money will allow the district to build curriculum and train staff to teach the courses. Chan was the lead grant writer and along with other district staff had to do some intense research and speak to other leaders in education in order to better understand how curriculum is built, how classes are paced and how objectives are established in order to create a successful program that would make Inglewood Unified a destination school. In addition, Chan shared that many of the people at the courthouse in Inglewood are in support of the program and have committed to being a part of the planning and teaching process, including six judges that signed a letter of support. These partners will also help secure venues and opportunities for moot and mock trails, internships and job shadowing opportunities. “We knew that as we learned to do this that we better have some practitioners watching what we are doing to ensure that we are doing it right and we have practitioners in Inglewood helping us,” Chan said. “We learned that we have a tremendous amount of support and capacity in Inglewood that want us to be successful. In the end an education in law will provide students what they need to succeed in college regardless of the career that they choose.” IUSD now qualifies to apply for a $100,000 implementation grant next year. More on SSP grants can be found at: http://www.cde. ca.gov/fg/fo/r17/ssp14result.asp. • Inside This Issue Briefs.....................................5 Classifieds............................5 Certified & Licensed Professionals.......................6 Food.......................................8 Hawthorne Happenings....5 Legals............................3, 6-7 Police Reports.....................5 Sports....................................4 Weekend Forecast Friday Sunny 69˚/52˚ Saturday Sunny 73˚/53˚ Sunday Sunny 72˚/53˚˚
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