Annual Report 2021-2022

Community Engagement is a major component of the Los Encinos School experience for all students and their families. One major difference this year, of course, was the impact of COVID which required us to modify the program. Field trips and community-wide gatherings were postponed, but we were still able to learn about our underserved community, focus on current events directly affecting our environment, and thank vital community essential workers, including our veterans and active military.

Zoom was a tremendous asset, bringing into our classrooms leading voices from such places as the Huntington Beach Wildlife Foundation, the Interfaith Food Pantry of North Hollywood, the Department of Child Protective Services, and LA Family Housing. Utilizing these and other resources, students were able to investigate, research, formulate action plans, and share their findings as facilitators at our Friday assemblies. Students truly became ambassadors to the school. They taught us about the irreversible damage from oil spills, initiated a canned food drive at Thanksgiving to alleviate food insecurity, spearheaded a toy drive to make the winter holidays more festive for children in foster care, wrote news from home for our active military, assembled close to two hundred goodie bags for veterans, and provided hygiene and cleaning supplies for those transitioning from homelessness.

Our Virtues and Values program and the focus on DEIJ are at the core of Community Engagement because they give us a common vocabulary that unites our efforts. Together with the curriculum, which is so very dynamic, a Los Encinos School student is exposed to a variety of learning modalities and strategies so they can be effective change agents.

This year, we emphasized the following Double-Vs: Stewardship, Assertiveness, Belonging, Compassion, Confidence, Reliability, Forgiveness, Justice, and Responsibility. At most Friday assemblies our students shared their thoughts and explained how these important concepts are much more than mere words — their impact can be life-changing.