Welcome back LACPA Families!
We are excited and grateful to continue to serve you and our wonderful students for the 2023-2024 school year.
Over the summer our community came together to affirm our existence, shower us with love, express their commitment to our work, and voice the need for our school. We used that outpouring of love as inspiration to expand our school's core pillars. Our core pillars serve as guidance for all that we do.
LACPA's PARC Pillars:
P - Purpose
A - Agency
R - Relationships & Radical Love
C - Community
We believe that cultivating a community rooted in relationships and radical love leads to members of our community developing a sense of purpose, agency, and the capacity to self-determine. Our goal is to provide a loving and nurturing environment that allows our students to excel in academics and self-discovery. We push back against harmful and carceral disciplinary and academic practices that are common in many schools and are often veiled as "high expectations." We aim to prove that softness is healing and that healing creates the conditions for growth, learning, and overall healthy children. Our LACPA students graduate with ample opportunities and the tools and confidence to lead lives of meaning. Thank you for choosing LACPA!
With love,
Rebecca Rodriguez
Executive Director
About our Executive Director:
Ms. Rebecca Rodriguez enters her third year with us at LACPA and proudly takes the role of Executive Director for the 2023-2024 School Year. Last year she served as the Director of Learning and Decolonial Wellness where she focused on transforming school culture to one that centered students' well-being, love and joy. Prior to her work with Los Angeles College Prep Academy, Ms. Rodriguez was the founding Principal of Vox Collegiate, a high-performing charter middle school in South Los Angeles. There she worked with teachers and students to reimagine special education and English language services while securing mental health & wrap-around services for students. She integrated Restorative Justice circle practice, trauma-informed practices and applied educational neuroscience to support student expression and healing in turn advancing academic growth. Prior to Vox, Ms. Rodriguez held several leadership positions in the Camino Nuevo Charter School network as a founding history teacher, department chair, literacy lead, grade level lead, senior class advisor, and student government founder. She is also a New School Creation Fellow with the Center for Love & Justice at High Tech High San Diego. She believes reconnecting with our indigenous roots and creating spaces where students can connect with self, others and our land propel academic learning.
Ms. Rodriguez earned her B.A. in History and Sociology and a Masters in Education with a focus on secondary teaching from CSU Fullerton, Ms. Rodriguez grew up in Norwalk and Whittier and earned her high school diploma from California High School in Whittier. Her mother is from Sinaloa and her father is from Chicago with roots in Mexico, and she is the baby of five who loves to cook and dance!
