Langdon Elementary Joins LEARN Program

Administrators at Langdon Avenue Elementary School held a special assembly Monday morning to celebrate the school’s inclusion in the LEARN program.

Langdon joins about 40% of the Los Angeles Unified School District’s 858 schools in the LEARN program, which seeks to improve the quality of education by turning over key decisions to a panel of parents, staff and teachers.

“I think it will make a big difference. We’ve got to get the parents involved,” said Langdon Assistant Principal Phil Genino. “It also keeps [administrators] on our toes. We’ll be dealing with questions of school policy in open meetings with the parents participating.”

On Monday, Principal Dan Balderrama addressed students and their parents to explain how LEARN schools operate and to encourage the kind of direct involvement that is at the heart of the educational reform program, Genino said.

“When the children come to school, they see the LEARN banner we’ve placed outside, but we want them to have an intelligent idea about what this all means,” Genino said.

“It’s an elementary school, so the students don’t understand all the implications. But when they see their mom and dad here and the principal coming to sit in their classes and all the different changes, they know something good is going on,” Genino said.

In June, LEARN, or Los Angeles Educational Alliance for Restructuring Now, received a boost when an independent research firm released a report showing that elementary school students at LEARN campuses performed better on standardized tests than students at other district schools.

Detractors say the program focuses more on changing campus governance than classroom instruction.