Dear Parents,

All of you deserve a big hand for a very successful inaugural year! In just one year, we have created a school built upon community involvement; we have a curriculum that is exceptional, and we have a dedicated staff that is committed to our teaching philosophy. These are not just lofty compliments, but I am pleased to tell you that a recent LAUSD audit confirmed it: LFCSA is doing an outstanding job.

As part of LAUSD’s yearly charter school oversight, three educators from the District’s Charter Office conduct thorough day-long investigations of charters. The District is required by law to assure charters are functioning consistent with best educational practices. At the end of the inspection, this “Audit Team” provides school administrators with recommendations for improvement.

With this intent, an Audit Team recently conducted its assessment and inspected LFCSA. The auditors visited classrooms, looked at work samples, compared our charter document to what they observed, and checked things such as: Board policies, procedures, and minutes, Site Council minutes, visitor policies and procedures, budget and fiscal procedures, safe school guidelines and programs, special education programs and procedures, and numerous other areas.

At the inspection’s conclusion, the lead auditor said, “We can always find something to recommend to a school, in this case we can not find anything to recommend. We are impressed and amazed at what has been accomplished in just seven months.” Needless to say, the staff and I are thrilled. Even knowing how many amazing things we still will be implementing in the future, to have our first audit report be so glowing clearly validates that we are moving in the right direction.

Again, thank you for your support—without you, your wonderful children, and your commitment, we could not have accomplished so much. It has been a great year!!!

A recent proposal at Site Council was for a parent-funded school bus from the Los Feliz community. Discussions included cost per student per day, as well as pick-up locations and times because of the K/1st grade time differences. Parent Rob Schweber is exploring possibilities, as well as gathering bids from bus companies for various services. Also, plans are underway for representatives from Parent Teacher Organizations and Booster clubs to come to our school and give us information about starting our own similar group(s).

By Cecily Harrison

When LFCSA parent Sherrell Cuneo saw a quilt being auctioned at Wagon Wheel, the preschool her daughter, Apple, attended, she though, “I could do that.” So when Apple was accepted to LFCSA, Cuneo proposed to create a quilt for the next fundraiser. “It made sense for a new school,” she said. With a mere three-month deadline to get the quilt finished by the time of the upcoming auction fundraiser, she focused on what would make the quilt unique and what would motivate a parent to want to own it.

Cuneo by trade is a costumer, and she gained inspiration for the quilt project from the women of Gee’s Bend, whose distinctive quilting style is based on traditional American and African-American patterns. This gave her the idea of a quilt made up of the handprints of each student with their names embroidered and sewn together. Cuneo also enlisted other parents of the School’s community to work on the collaboration.

Cuneo created a grid—approximately 120 student hands worked out to an eleven by eleven grid pattern. She sought out fellow costumers and LFCSA moms Candice Cain and Nikii Henry to help devise a color scheme. She and Maggie Goldman, a neighbor and LFCSA founding parent, journeyed downtown for fabrics. Jenny Werndorf traced her son Oliver’s impressive hand to provide a template, from which the 11″ x 11″ square patch measurement was derived. The individual patches would then be sewn together to make the quilt.

Elise Brebes hosted the first quilt meeting at her home. “We were looking for whoever showed up,” said Cuneo, noting that embroiderers were hard to find. Goldman asked the Room Mothers (the teacher-to-parent liaisons in each class) to help obtain children’s handprints and signatures, and Reg Jones provided invaluable organization. The group arranged to have finished patches dropped off at a designated area at the School.
Quilting groups gathered in homes, over twenty quilters in all. Cuneo said that watching the busy mothers (and one dad, David Buik) quietly working together on a quilt reminded her of a Shakespeare Festival, where actors living otherwise gypsy lives from theatre-to-theatre, comfortably utilized traditional skills of sewing and embroidery. “Handwork gives a sense of peace,” said Cuneo, adding, “except, of course, when thread gets snarled.”

With the fundraiser deadline fast approaching, Cuneo said, “The quilt was all over the place, it took on a life of its own.” She took to calling herself the “Quilt Wrangler,” since completing the quilt required a multitude of logistics. Patches were coming in at intervals—at one point, there were too many red squares and the configuration had to be reworked. But everything eventually got coordinated, and the quilt was finished on schedule.

Once the quilt was in the pipeline and slated to be auctioned off at the fundraiser, though, Cuneo & Co. realized that perhaps this was not the time to auction off an item that represents in so emotional a way the beginning of LFCSA. As Marta Alcumbrac put it, “The quilt symbolizes each child’s first year, and their parents’ trust and faith in our school.” Instead of being auctioned off, they proposed that the handprint quilt be displayed in the School’s entry, as an ongoing fundraiser. The proposal was widely accepted. Squares are available for sponsorship purchase of $10 or more, and Cuneo believes that one day the quilt will indeed be auctioned for the benefit of the School. But just as a quilt is a collaborative work, so is LFCSA. The handprint quilt proudly displayed near Principal Karen Newlin’s office serves as a testament to the community’s creativity and commitment and a symbol of how parents, children, and staff join together to make LFCSA happen, every day.

As most of you know by now, the Board unanimously voted to reject the Proposition 39 offer and commit to spending another year at the Saint Ambrose location. The constructive input from staff, teachers, and parents was greatly appreciated. The Board will be spending the next several months filling the last three vacant Board seats. Our focus will be on selecting Board members that have experience and expertise in fundraising. Our next meeting will be at the beginning of September.

By: Bebe Johnson

“Vogueing” like pros, they strutted the makeshift catwalk at LFCSA by twos and threes, pausing—with a bit of attitude—at the front of the stage to show off the t-shirts they had individually created the week before.

An invasion of supermodels? No, it was the culmination of Ms. Hamberger’s first grade class unit on clothes, and a great illustration of LFCSA’s project based curriculum in action.

“The whole thing began when we were studying about clothes,” Ms. Hamberger recalls. “Since the overall theme for the school this year is caring, we explored the different ways that clothing can show that we care.” Quizzing the children on the ways that clothing can show concern for others sparked an expanding notion of the roles clothing plays in the world.

As part of the goal of making each child an “expert,” “they all had to do research at home on questions they generated themselves,” Ms. H—as she is affectionately known—explains. “We are always trying to work with their critical thinking skills. We use a technique we call KWL—what do you know, what do you want to learn, and what did you learn.” As part of that process, each child did a survey of family members’ clothing choices and preferences; they also worked in teams to show how different fabrics might drape based on construction and fiber content and evaluated appropriateness of various garments for different activities. They even grasped the concept of supply and demand by setting up a mock clothing store where they made and sold paper “clothing,” using a pre-established spending budget for their wardrobes.

To learn about fabric textures and construction, the children wove paper textiles from construction paper. For garment making, they read books on pattern making and practiced sewing with string, all of which helped invest them in the learning process. Ms. H observes, “They’re so much more connected to the learning this way. Also, by having to work together, they’re experiencing real life situations, where you have to solve problems in a group.”

For many of the children, getting to apply their expertise on their own t-shirts was the highlight. With guidance from Ms. H and a handful of helpful parent volunteers, the children executed their creations to their own exacting specifications. “For some of the kids who seemed a bit stuck, I explained that they could filter their designs through their own interests.” Philip and Nikolai tapped into their love of Star Wars, creating starbursts from silver sequins and star fighters from shimmering textile paints. Colette, a budding marine biologist, created ocean layers with rolling waves, fish and mermaids. “They really had to think the design through,” says Ms. H, “and learn how to compromise what they wanted with what they could actually achieve.”

The fashion show seemed like a natural way to tie up the project. Naming the show “The Boys’ and Girls’ Spring Collection,” they practiced their fashion forward moves—choreographed by Ms. H—to hip techno music. A rapt audience of kindergartners, first graders and staff, and videography and popping flashbulbs from visiting parental paparazzi heightened the excitement of LFCSA’s first fashion event.

“When the show started, they really pulled it off,” their proud teacher beams. The students were proud, too. As Zahara pronounced after the dust had settled, “Ms. H, you’re just like Tyra Banks in America’s Next Top Model!”

You may have noticed some newly framed hexagons, triangles, circles and squares hanging in the East stairwell under the quilt. These are the result of an exploration of shapes and counting done by Ms. Pardo’s class near the beginning of the school year. The project is actually two-sided. On one side the children drew and counted shapes. On the other, they overlapped the shapes and then counted them.