PUC Schools

Description

Dr. Jacqueline Elliot and Dr. Ref Rodriguez, the founders of Partnerships To Uplift Communities, have been working in collaboration with each other for the past ten years. They met in 1998 when each of them independently authored charter school planning grants that were funded by the California Department Of Education. Dr. Elliot was committed to increasing the high school and college graduation rate among students who lived in the Northeast San Fernando Valley, where she had served as an educator for thirteen years. Dr. Rodriguez had the same vision for the students residing in Northeast Los Angeles, where Ref had grown up, attended school and worked. The two visionaries were introduced to each other by the late Sue Bragato, the founder and Executive Director of the California Network of Educational Charter Schools (CANEC), following the announcement of the grant awards.During their first conversation, Jacqueline and Ref were amazed to discover that their visions were identical in a number of ways including class size, overall school size, calendar, schedule, school culture, college and community partnerships, parent engagement, curriculum, and much more. Until that time, nobody had started a charter middle school in Los Angeles. However, at the same time and independent of each other, both Ref and Jacqueline had developed an identical vision of an ideal middle school for students who lived in communities within LAUSD, where students were failing and dropping out of school. They immediately realized that their skill sets were a match to make their visions become realities. Jacqueline had an extensive background working in LAUSD and in the field of education. Ref had an extensive business background and had also worked in the field of education in private Catholic schools.From April 1998 though August 1999, Ref worked closely with Jacqueline to develop and open Community Charter Middle School. Together, they met challenges, overcame obstacles and convinced LAUSD to allow them to open the first charter middle school in Los Angeles. They fought and won battles too numerous to mention. Following the successful opening of Community Charter Middle School, Ref focused intently on opening the middle school in Northeast Los Angeles. With Jacqueline's support and lessons learned from the founding of the first school, Ref triumphantly opened the doors to the California Academy for Liberal Studies Middle School (CALS), in fall 2000.As soon as the first two middle schools opened, they were inundated with requests for seats from parents in the two respective communities. Extensive waiting lists were developed by the sixth month of operation in both schools. In response to those community requests Jacqueline and Ref developed and opened a high school for the CALS graduates and a second middle school for the Northeast San Fernando Valley, maintaining the same level of collaboration that had begun in 1998.The two charter school founders realized that to have significant impact in a community, a cluster of charter schools needed to be created within the community, rather than just one or two.

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